Obama Speech: ‘A More Perfect Union’

TED | Talks | Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight (video)

from www.ted.com posted with vodpod

Insights from Rick Warren

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having ‘wealth’ from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren,

‘Purpose Driven Life ‘ author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body–but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness,’which is my problem, my issues, my pain.’ But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.
 
That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

NOW, PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS

Randy Pausch reprising his “Last Lecture”

New: see Randy’s book about his “Last Lecture” at www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy_Book.html Randy Pausch reprising his inspirational “Last Lecture” on the Oprah Show (Oct 22, 2007). See the full-length version of this short Oprah Show reprise at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/robins/Randy . Randy Pausch 

New Tazer

Whoever this guy is he has a definite message for you

Not too long ago, I saw something at the gunshop that sparked my interest.

The occasion was our 10th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife.

What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized tazer. The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety. Needless to say, this was way too cool.

Cut a long storyshort, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the thing and pushed the button. fokall! I was so disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I’d get a blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. Awesome! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to my wife what that burn spot is on the face of her LG convection oven

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, right? Yah. There I sat in my recliner, my cat looking on intently, the trusting little soul, while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Kitty for a fraction of a second, but thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat and, as most of you already know, hell hath no fury like a cat pissed off. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and my WP supporter jersey, with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, tazer in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries. All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5′ long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and loaded with two itsy, bitsy AAA batteries thinking to myself ‘no flippin’ way!’

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best.

I’m sitting there alone, the cat looking on with her head tilted to one side as if to say, ‘don’t do it, you stupid man,’ reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thingy couldn’t hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY MOTHER OF @@@!!!!, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, CRAP ON A STICK, @&$ ME GEORGE!!!!! I’m pretty sure THE BLUE BULLS TEAM ran in through the side door, picked me up, body slammed me on the carpet over and over and over again and then slammed the recliner over my head as a just for fun.

I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet smelling like piss, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and pins and needles in my legs. The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to herself, ‘Do it again, do it again you stupid d00s!’

Please take this from the voice of experience - there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself!!!!. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor! Three second burst would be considered conservative. A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent and forlorn reading glasses were hanging miserably on the mantel of the fireplace.

How did they up get there? My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and judging by how my jaw hung listlessly, my bottom lip must have weighed 88 lbs. By the way, at this point my testicles, feeling like they withdrew into my body somewhere around my ribcage, are still waiting for the all clear signal to emerge from the bomb shelter. Now I know how Tom Hanks’ character felt when he had to go search for Private Ryan.

I felt like I should offer a significant reward for their safe return. Even now, I experience shrinkage when I plug anything into the socket.

So if you ever feel compelled to ‘mug’ yourself with a tazer to test it, take my advice! Repeat after me…here, kitty kitty….

YES WE CAN!

Great video! Check it out!

from www.dipdive.com posted with vodpod

Moonrise Over Rockport

Last One for Now, originally uploaded by StarrGazr.

 

The Tides, They Are A’Changing

The Tides, They Are A’Changing, originally uploaded by StarrGazr.

 

Drawn In

Drawn In, originally uploaded by StarrGazr.

So, it seems that my last post has gotten a LOT of attention. Thank you for all who pointed out to me that it is a very old piece and has made its way around the net. Believe it or not, I had somehow never seen it before and I have been online over 16 years. Well, what is old is made new again and for those who hadn’t seen it before, I am sure you shared my laughter, which was all I was trying to do.

Also, it was not written by John Cleese. No matter, it is still funny nonetheless.

John Cleese’s “Letter to America”

Originally uploaded by Browserd.

Dear Citizens of America,

In view of your failure to elect a competent President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

 

Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy), as from Monday next.

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium,” and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise.”

3. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’; you may elect to spell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you find you simply can’t cope with correct pronunciation.

4. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up “vocabulary”). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

5. There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”

6. You will relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”,

but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

7. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will

be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England. It will be called “Come-Uppance Day.”

8. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

9. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

10. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

11. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables… Both roundabouts and metrification will help you understand the British sense of humour.

12. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling “gasoline”) - roughly $8/US per gallon. Get used to it.

13. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call french fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with malt vinegar.

14. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

15. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager.” American brands will be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

16. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors as English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” was an experience akin to having one’s ear removed with a cheese grater.

17. You will cease playing American “football.” There is only one kind of proper football; you call it “soccer”. Those of you brave enough, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a

bunch of Jessies - English slang for “Big Girls Blouse”).

18. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable and forgiven.

19. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

20. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due, backdated to 1776.

Thank you for your co-operation.

John Cleese