WEEKEND BLOG ALERT

The internet is abuzz with excitement over the latest media sensation, Captain Euro. I have no idea why he exists, but he does. And he is a super-hero of the European sort. I would offer commentary, but I must defer to my european (and non-EU member, thankfully) correspondent, Vegard Valberg.

Blogger was politely blocking all publishing today, so sorry for the lack of content. Whilst I waited, here's what I was looking at:

Holy excellent ideas, Batman! Healyourchurchwebsite.com is ace in so many ways: nice design; frequent, blog-esque content, and a wonderful concept. The creator-Dean Peters, a Christian with obvious web skills- reviews church websites and critiques them- some say cruelly, i say fairly. For the uninitiate, church websites are quite possibly the worst websites, when taken as a whole. Not only is Dean (hopefully) making money, he seems to be having fun, and doing us all a HUGE service by cluing in the clueless. I love pastors, but they are not the Internet-accomplished sort. And those hideous websites won't heal themselves.

go here for his latest analysis of a church website in need.
Here is the church's current site; here is Dean's template suggestion. An improvement? Immense, I say.

Lileks' Bleat is a delight today; he went and saw some Episode II, too. He liked it! read why, and heed his disclaimer: Let's Remember We Are Talking About Star Wars Here.

Googled

I love google as much as the next guy. Here are some google searches that brought viewers to Knees Knelt:

pictures of rivers cuomo shoes
screensaver the amazing thor- Google Chile!
knut haugaland- #5. I'm honored.
steven seagals body- I don't know how, but I'm #1 here.
Norway Jew Boycott
HENRY DARGER WORLDS LONGEST BOOK

If one of these searchers was you, consider this your spooky, Big Brother-y moment of the day. And welcome back to the site!

So you mastered Pong long ago, right? well let's see if you've got what it takes to play Pong at the world's smallest website. Not for the faint of eyesight.

my opinion: I haven't seen anything this simultaneously cool and useless on the web in a long, long time.

tip: click 'pong' to load pong, click the micro-arrow to cycle through other available games and features.


UPDATE:

more pong fun: Swedish 3-D Pong

the complete illustrated history of Pong

An Animated Pong Movie

Pong: text version

ghetto-ASCII Pong -- but it's more like Breakout! than Pong.

Presidential Pong-- absolutely hilarious Bush v. Gore election pong, but it's 2-player only. Includes a link to Elian Pong.

A version faithful to the orginal Pong, with easier controls.

And finally, the original pong. The controls are very hard to use, just like the original.

ISRAEL AGAIN ATTACKS ARAFAT

... is printed in bold typeface across this morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A more ignorant and blatantly spun headline I have not read all year. For those of you who missed it, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up an Israeli bus and murdered 17. In response, Israel surrounded Arafat's home. In response. Yet what did the slack-jaws at the P-I decide to run? That Israel is on the attack again. Not that 17 people where blown to bits, or burnt to death trapped in a bus, no- just that those evil Jews are up to their old tricks. Don't be fooled.

ps- for some reason, the PI doesn't have this headline on their website, though it is plain as day on my lunchroom table. Their equally one-sided headline, with the same story, can be found here.

I read about this yesterday, but it had me so angry I decided not to post about it, because it would come out poorly. Now I've got a cold rage burning inside me, primed for blogging fireworks. So here we go:

YOUR CHURCH IS SO GAY


Now, I'm not about to assume that my views are in line with everyone else's. I do consider my beliefs to be the correct beliefs- that's why I believe them. But even if you don't have the faith that I do, you can still see the absolutely amoral actions on display at Woodland Park United Methodist Church. Let me lay it on the table for you.

Last year, WPUMC's pastor Mark Williams anounced at a Methodist conference (clue #1 that this is a media event, not a question of right and wrong) that he is gay. To quote directly, he said

"I'm proudly as much a practicing gay man as I am a practicing United Methodist"

Lest there be any confusion, this is how the Methodist Church interprets Williams' statement:

On June 15, Williams told fellow clergy and lay members of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference that he is a practicing gay man.

note the specific use of 'practicing', both in his own words and in the Church's summary. Now, the methodist church has a lawbook, known as the Book of Discipline. Therein, it forbids the ordination or appointment of "self-avowed practicing homosexuals." Williams seems to fit that to a tee. So why, yesterday, did the Methodist Church determine that "...there was not reasonable cause to forward this matter for a church trial"? Because Williams has pulled himself a Clinton, and blatantly at that.
As clearly stated above, one requirement of the job of ordained methodist pastor is that you cannot be a practicing homosexual. Williams clearly said he is a practicing homosexual. But see what happened next:

To ascertain whether Williams is a "self-avowed practicing homosexual," members of the investigative committee asked him a highly personal and intimate question, he said, which he refused to answer.

In part, because he wouldn't answer that question, the committee didn't have evidence that he was a "self-avowed practicing homosexual."

A classic politcian's dodge. Or was it?

"For me (not answering the question) was not a dodge," Williams said. "It's just a matter of good taste and dignity. I would find the question reprehensible to be asked of anybody."

Why? The Bible talks about sex all the time. It is very specific. Furthermore, God (remember we are dealing with a group of people who have committed their lives to serving Him) knows already, so why are you swindling your own church, you liar?

Where is the victory in falsehood? Everybody knows that Williams is a practicing gay. Everybody knows that the Methodist Church doesn't allow practicing gays to be ministers. So why is Williams still preaching? Because he got out on a technicality. He has reduced the Methodist church to the moral level of the American legal system: it's not what's true that counts, it's what you can prove.

Here's the kicker: A Reverend Beeman of Washington explains the ramifications of the church's decision:

This gives tremendous encouragement to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals in the ministry who realize that if they won't testify against themselves, it will be very hard to make charges against them stick," Beeman said.

As long as you don't tell the truth, you can't be convicted! Holy men around the world, rejoice!

Why should you care about this? Why do I care? I'm a Christian but I don't belong to the Methodist Church. Don't think I've ever been to a Methodist church service. But It is important to notice when the third largest denomination in the US (8.4 million members) allows its leaders to blatantly lie to avoid punishment, and continue to preach the gospel of truth. I would never be a part of a religion whose leaders consider rules and moral absolutes as obstacles to get around, not guidelines to follow. And neither should you. If your faith is not your foundation of truth and life, then it's a waste of time.

This Is Only a Test...

I Went and Saw Me Some Episode II

is the best rundown of the new Star Wars I have read. Enjoy the following excerpts:

The Jedis seem to be coming down with mono, moving as slow as Walker, Texas Ranger. I know these guys are supposed to be asexual wizard-monk-ninja-green-berets, but they look like librarians on their way to a Rusted Root concert...

Anakin Timberlake continues to be the weak link in his own frigging trilogy...

The scenes between Timberlake and Portman, reprising her role as Princess Cuecard, are as romantic as watching two horses being forced to breed...

Obi-Wan's excellent scenes of mystery-snooping around are classic detective-fun; I expect him to sport a fedora in Episode 3: Weekend at Lando's...

A great plot summary is also found in the article:

Our heroes are initially trapped in a G-rated junior-high production of Blade Runner. Then some scenes from Spaceballs happen, but they're funnier. Then Obi-Wan goes to an oil rig on Waterworld, except now it's named El Camino and is controlled by compulsively sanitary anorexics doing stem cell research to create an entire demographic of Steven Seagals out of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Then Jar Jar Binks gives the withering dad from "Alf" control over the pressboxes at Alltel Stadium. Somehow, tanning-addict Anakin Timberlake ends up on "Fraggle Rock" helping Natalie Portman get a jogbra, but they run into the Lord of the Rings sorcerer fresh from a CEO haircut. Then all hell breaks loose in the Temple of Doom for about a half hour: imagine the battle of Gettysburg staged by Gaudi and Dali, with people slinging energy-dongs that negate all matter except other energy-dongs. The film ends on Thanksgiving Day just as some larval stormtroopers are lining up for the best Macy's Parade ever.

And the first thing I've read that give a decent excuse for this movie to be seen:

I'm only scraping the surface of what is suddenly an irony-rich, layered myth-spectacle that was supposed to be popcorn-stupid.

Read the whole review; it's a hoot.

Dangerous Meta has some good insight into the latest rash of backward thinking. Concerning the latest headlines about a warning issued by Egypt to the US, prior to sept. 11. As DM says, this is not news. Yesterday, he cites two articles, one dated 12/01 and another dated 9/12/01, that mention the warnings. I find it a little odd that, after Egypt's 'prediction' came true, they simply stated "We expected that something was going to happen and informed the Americans." But now that it has become more internally political, Egypt is changing its story, claiming that "Egyptian intelligence warned American officials about a week before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview on Sunday"[from nytimes]. Seems Mubarak is adding a few details to his story.

This is an excellent essay by Steven Den Beste on the Kyoto Treaty; specifically, why the US will never support it, and why it's good that we don't. It's long, but well written, and I learned a lot.

This is pretty pathetic as far as conspiracies go, but the question must be asked: Does anybody else think it odd that a Simpsons episode bearing the title

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

aired on 2/21/91, a decade before the move of the same name was released?

So you're terribly interested in lists and links and blogs and such, right? Then you've got to seeall the trouble mr. Bear went to to create his own list. He actually did a fine job, I think. And then you'll want to go here for more info, and a snazzy little map of the so-called blogosphere.

In the same vein, InstaPundit has also revamped his list. The only question that remains is why, Oh Why is Knees Knelt nowhere to be found on these lists? I'm as shocked as you are.

Tim Blair has some news about Silverchair and the scary disease that is plaguing lead singer Daniel Johns.

Silverchair's official site. WARNING- this page has an elaborate Flash intro that temporarily takes over your desktop.

Updates to the site:

It's not much, but it's something. I've finally put up a list of my favorite/most frequented weblogs, which you will find on the left, handsomely titled WEBLOGS. I'll probably be adding to the list, and maybe reorganizing it. RIght now it is in a vaguely quantitative order; that is, the blogs I visit most frequently are at the top of the list. But all the blogs there are ace; I recommend each one. It's that kneesknelt Seal Of Approval that is so coveted among the blogging community. er... yeah. Anyway, I changed the Daily Special too, and there'll be more to come on The Bear blog. Also, I put the READ links at the top, because those are the blogs/sites most dear to my heart... they are my friends and acquaintances, both in person and online, and I recommend them above all other links. I'll try to update and clean up my links department today; there's some dead weight over there. Stay tuned!