Engineer captures video footage of what appears to be a woolly mammoth crossing a Siberian river. These creatures have been thought to be extinct since about 2,000 B.C.



This is a large animal thought extinct for thousands of years, now spotted. Along with historical notes like that mountain gorillas weren't discovered until the early 1900's, this gives more hope for some day discovering definitive evidence of the existence of Sasquatch.

In a recurring Groundhog Day tribute of their own, the editors of National Review annually post Jonah Goldberg's excellent 2005 paean to the classic Harold Ramis movie, Groundhog Day. Here are the closing paragraphs of Goldberg's article, A Movie for All Time.

Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point to be made here. Connors’s metamorphosis contradicts almost everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn’t find paradise or liberation by becoming more “authentic,” by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world.

Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, the writers of the original story, are not philosophers. Ramis was born Jewish and is now a lackadaisical Buddhist. He wears meditation beads on his wrist, he told the New York Times, “because I’m on a Buddhist diet. They’re supposed to remind me not to eat, but actually just get in the way when I’m cutting my steak.” Rubin’s original script was apparently much more complex and philosophical — it opened in the middle of Connors’s sentence to purgatory and ended with the revelation that Rita was caught in a cycle of her own. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical (indeed, the film is surely the best sign of his reincarnation as a great actor), but Ramis constantly insisted that the film be funny first and philosophical second.

And this is the film’s true triumph. It is a very, very funny movie, in which all of the themes are invisible to people who just want to have a good time. There’s no violence, no strong language, and the sexual content is about as tame as it gets. (Some e-mailers complained that Connors is only liberated when he has sex with Rita. Not true: They merely fall asleep together.) If this were a French film dealing with the same themes, it would be in black and white, the sex would be constant and depraved, and it would end in cold death. My only criticism is that Andie MacDowell isn’t nearly charming enough to warrant all the fuss (she says a prayer for world peace every time she orders a drink!). And yet for all the opportunities the film presents for self-importance and sentimentality, it almost never falls for either. The best example: When the two lovebirds emerge from the B&B to embrace a happy new life together in what Connors considers a paradisiacal Punxsutawney, Connors declares, “Let’s live here!” They kiss, the music builds, and then in the film’s last line he adds: “We’ll rent to start.”

Read the whole thing.

I think Groundhog Day is one of the best movies ever made. I remember watching it on VHS with my wife, years ago; though it does not have an explicitly Christian message, the movie is brimming with redemption. Watching it for the first time surfaced in me an exquisite sense of joy. (And, in my one beef with Goldberg over this article, I thought Andie MacDowell was plenty charming).

If you haven't already watched Groundhog Day, I highly recommend it. If you have, get with the spirit of things and watch it again (and again, and again, and . . .)

Do you have any predictions for 2012?

I'm going to posit a few:

1. Here's a bold prediction: Barack Obama will not win re-election.

No, I am not underestimating the man. He's very, very good at campaigning, he is personally popular (though his current job approval ratings are pretty low). And, though I disagree with most of his policies, I believe he is a smart and talented politician.

But . . .

I don't think you can underestimate how bad the global economy is looking. There are just too many downward pressures: the financial ailments of the Eurozone, the instability in the Middle East, our large debt burden. For most voters, the economy is the biggest issue right now, and I don't expect it to improve very much between now and November 2012, though I hope I'm wrong. If it hasn't improved, I think Obama is done.

As a side prediction, Obama will replace Joe Biden as his running mate with someone else - perhaps Hillary.

2. Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination and will be elected President. This is, of course, a corollary to my first prediction, and if I'm wrong on #1 I'll get a twofer fail. Regarding Romney, like him or not, he will be the most palatable alternative to Obama for most Americans. And they will vote for him, if things don't improve significantly in the economy.

3. The New Orleans Saints will beat the Pittsburg Steelers in the Superbowl. I'm never right about sports predictions, but I had to try. I'm assuming Big Ben's ankle gets better. And I realize that the Packers are having a great year. But what the hay.

5. Blo will post on Thinklings at least once in 2012. Hey, a guy can dream.

So, what do you think? Do you have some predictions, or want to take me to task for mine? Have at it in the comments.

Well, my technical issues resolved themselves quicker than I expected, thankfully. Thinklings has been upgraded to Bloo version 1.35 (as yet unreleased, but just about ready to be set loose).

Here's what's new in this release:

• Bloo now supports full comment moderation
• The comment thread subscription is enhanced. For instance, you can now cancel your subscription to a comments thread - every comment email you receive has a link which, if clicked on, will unsubscribe you
• Added two new spam Captchas: Bloo Captcha (which we've been using here for awhile and which is currently in force for Thinklings comments) and Google's reCaptcha service.
• Private Site, a new Bloo extension SnapOn, which allows you to set your entire blog private, meaning that only logged-in users can see it
• Max Links Spam Filter, also a Bloo extension SnapOn, in the Spamicide collection. Spammers, we hates them. we hates them forevah!!
• Emails coming from the system now look better (or that's the theory)
• Fixed a bug that caused comment counts to show no comments when viewing posts by category
• Performed various other bug fixes and architectural improvements

For some of you who have been thinking about starting to blog, and want to go the less-travelled road, you might think about giving Bloo a try. Be part of something small! (As you can see, marketing and snappy slogans are not my forte)

The Queen's Christmas message this year was very good. You can read the full text here, but below is the conclusion:

Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general (important though they are) – but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem

Descend to us we pray

Cast out our sin

And enter in

Be born in us today

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Amen.

Doug Wilson over at Blog and MaBlog reflects on the death of Christopher Hitchens. An excerpt:

Those who hold to the gospel of Jesus Christ must always remember that the good news of Christ is set against the backdrop of the bad news -- we are all of us sinners, and we all need cleansing and forgiveness. Christopher Hitchens did not need to come to Christ to have his arguments refuted (although that would have happened). He needed to come to Christ to have his sins forgiven.

There will be a CanonWIRED clip out shortly, in which I caution Christians against two errors -- and both of them are errors of speculation. The possibility of last minute conversions must never be turned into actual last minute conversions. No one is wished into Heaven. There have been too many unbelievers preached into Heaven at the funeral, and we ought not to give way to the false tenderness of that impulse. At the same time, the likelihood that Christopher never called on Christ should not be turned into a hard-line dogmatic statement, followed by "good riddance." No one is wished into Hell either. We ought not to greet the news of Christopher's death the way he greeted the death of Jerry Falwell's, for example.

The bad news is that we are all under judgment. The good news is that the one who has faith in Jesus may be forgiven. We must unashamedly declare these terms to the whole world -- but declaring the terms of judgment (which Scripture requires us to do) is not the same thing as playing the Judge ourselves. We leave the soul of Christopher Hitchens (and he did have a soul, despite all his arguments) in the hands of God, who will do nothing but right.

All of this is of course consistent with the affection I had for Christopher. Our prayers and condolences are with his family and friends.

"Yo, yo, Santa, hold up, I'ma let you finish, but everyone knows I have the best handouts of all time."

On this day in 1963 the world lost C.S. Lewis. (Aldous Huxley also died the same day, but both deaths were overshadowed by the assassination of President John Kennedy.) Every year on this date, I've run some variation of a tribute to the greatest Christian writer of the twentieth century, but this year a little something different. A list of what Lewis has taught me over the years:

1. Wonder. My first introduction to Lewis was not the Chronicles of Narnia, actually, but as a child, Out of the Silent Planet. It was completely weird and wonderful. When I got to Narnia shortly thereafter -- I was about 8 or so, probably -- I consumed each book one after another lustily, like a compendium of Turkish delight. Lewis' space capsules and English manses and wardrobes and attic spaces grabbed ahold of me, broadcasting where my neurons were tuned, man. I was the kid who saw a treasure map on the back of a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal and was convinced it led to buried valuables in my Brownsville, Texas neighborhood. Reading the Space Trilogy (well, the first two books when I was little, the third well into high school) and Narnia was like warp speed.

2. Reason. Even Lewis's fiction is chock-full of logic. "Don't they teach that in schools any more?" the Professor says to the Pevensies when they don't believe Lucy's fantastic story. Lewis's faith was full of wonder but was, also, entirely reasonable, and in the 80's when the apologetic industry was dominated by Josh McDowell and burgeoning creation science (Lee Strobel hadn't hit the scene just yet), I was ingesting The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity. And probably the most influential non-fiction work of his for me is his collection of essays named after "God in the Dock." The article "Myth Became Fact" is one of my all-time favorite short pieces, fiction or non, and offered a complementary weight to one of my favorite lines in Perelandra, which I quote probably way too much in all the stuff I write. (Ransom understood that myth is "gleams of celestial beauty and strength falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility.") Lewis helped me make sense of this polytheistic, pluralistic world. His classic trilemma in Mere Christianity just made sense. His own logic and reason is not airtight of course, but he approached Christianity not just as a worshiper but as a thinking worshiper, and he therefore becomes an invaluable asset for relentlessly scrutinizing young men and women who are sorting out their faith.

3. Artistry. Homeboy could flat-out write. And when he wrote, he exulted. In his own words:

"when the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring, and . . . what we take for the didactic is often the enchanted."

When I was in the first grade, my class filled out these little booklets that chronicled our favorite subjects, foods, games, etc. and one of the questions was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My six year old hand wrote Author in that blank, and through a series of adolescent aspirations and a call to vocational ministry I have never not wanted to be a writer of books. Lewis threw gasoline on that childish ambitious fire, and he showed me over and over again what words can do. His writing was show and tell for me, displaying in so many beautiful, confident ways how literary pursuit is worship.

We are the 100%.

We are not in a battle against flesh and blood. But all we like sheep have gone astray, so we forget that. We are consumed with greed and covetousness and set ourselves against others made in the image of God.

We forget our brothers in need, we envy and rail against those who have what we desire. We place our hope in men and systems and media and money and rage.

You can divide yourself from others and categorize yourself as a 99 or a 1.

I'm in the 100% that need Jesus.

In the eyes of our legal system, Jerry Sandusky is to be considered innocent until proven guilty in court. But as Sandusky begins to speak out about the charges against him, there is a peculiar dysfunction in his moral reasoning, and he assumes we will make it after due consideration of the "facts" as he presents them.

This is what I mean: Jerry Sandusky hopes we will believe that he did not sodomize or otherwise perpetrate sexual violence against little boys but "merely" showered with them, engaged in naked horseplay with them, etc. This is a classic mistake of unrepentant sinners, and most if not all of us commit it quite frequently. It is called "meeting the sin halfway," a way of nodding to an accusation but denying it with a kind of "it was all a big misunderstanding" dodge.

Sandusky believes his story is more believable than the accusations. But it's not even more believable than his innocence. What he doesn't understand is that, if he were to claim he didn't even know these boys, it would be more believable than to say he showered with them and wrestled with them in a gym all alone after hours but there was no sexual component to any of it. There is no way to see this behavior as appropriate or decent or respectable. Should we believe his denials as they have been issued, we should still believe him to be a very stupid pervert.

I believe the charges against Sandusky will be proved true. His sin will out. But if he wants to lie about what happened, he should have gone all in. His obfuscation is just a way to paint a face on his sin, and it won't work. Partial confession is no confession.

The other day I was at work, standing in one of the areas that has TV broadcasts running. I saw this story highlighted on one of the 24-hour news stations:

"President Obama signs executive order cutting government waste"

A number of people were nearby as well and we all started laughing. I mean, really, is that all it took? An executive order? We're saved!!!

All kidding aside, I think there is a profound moral component to the way a government spends money. I also believe that committing our grandchildren to suffocating debt is immoral. The American government has, for decades, spent more than it takes in, but I thought that the recent unprecedented deficits - deficits over a trillion dollars that make past overspending look like pocket change - coupled with the mind-numbingly scary sovereign debt crisis around the world would wake us up as a country. I was wrong. There have been no significant spending cuts seriously and realistically enacted by our congress or proposed by our executive branch. What's strange is that private businesses deal with this all the time. When they face a debt crisis, they cut spending. Our government seems incapable of this.

Meanwhile, the party I don't generally vote for is performing the kabuki theater of "stimulus", "super" committees, and executive orders outlawing bad weather and the post-Christmas blues. The party I generally vote for can't find anyone in our entire 300,000,000+ population who has the experience, gravitas and ethics to have chance of being elected president.

And I don't think anyone on either side is really serious about dealing with the immorality of our over-spending.

The reason, of course, is that we electorally punish them when they behave responsibly.

"Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us." - P.J. O'Rourke

P.S. The upshot of all this is I'm beginning to check out politically. My consumption of, for instance, political blogs and news has gone down dramatically in the past few months, and I'm happier for it. But I will pray, and I will vote, and I hope you will too. I think doing those things is important.

First of all, yesterday was Thinkling Phil's birthday! (You may know him as Shrode.) Happy (belated) Birthday, Phil!

Also:
My new book Gospel Wakefulness is now available. (Apparently Oct. 31 was a "soft" street date.) It is now for sale via Amazon, B&N, LifeWay, etc. Cheapest price I've seen lately is at WTS Bookstore. It's also available in e-versions.

If you're so inclined to buy it, thank you and I hope you like it!

Our President recently decided - shortsightedly, I believe - to pour fuel on the always-simmering fires of class envy in order to help enact his agenda and, consequently, aid his re-election. And, evidently, it's working. And so, the Occupy Wall Street movement was born.

In observing this phenomenon, I've been trying to determine which of the following is the most relevant:

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. (Exodus 20:17 ESV)

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5 ESV)

The Exodus passage is among the most ignored commandments in Scripture. The passage from James is one of the most ignored warnings in Scripture.

It's sobering to consider that, certainly in James' times and culture, the term "rich" would have probably described almost all of us in the affluent west. That includes the white, middle-class Occupy protesters demanding that someone else pay their college loans.

In America, certainly from a historical perspective and even from a current world-wide perspective, almost all of us are the 1%.

So, what to make of the Occupy movement? I don't know. It seems to me that it is predominantly a case of the slightly less-rich storming the gates of the ultra-rich.

I don't think much good is going to come from it.

As most of you know, Steve Jobs died yesterday. I think almost everyone can agree, whether you like Apple products or not, that Mr. Jobs was a genius and his company produced devices and computers that have changed the way we interact with technology and even with each other.

I'm not a Mac-bigot. I don't own an iPhone or an iPad, though we do have a Mac desktop computer. But I have often observed that Apple products all have a common trait. They just work, melding aesthetic beauty with breathtaking technological competence. We're all used to iPhones now. Twenty years ago we would have fallen over if someone had shown us a working model of one.

Kevin Williamson makes an observation here that I think is worth considering.

I was down at the Occupy Wall Street protest today, and never has the divide between the iPhone world and the politics world been so clear: I saw a bunch of people very well-served by their computers and telephones (very often Apple products) but undeniably shortchanged by our government-run cartel education system. And the tragedy for them — and for us — is that they will spend their energy trying to expand the sphere of the ineffective, hidebound, rent-seeking, unproductive political world, giving the Barney Franks and Tom DeLays an even stronger whip hand over the Steve Jobses and Henry Fords. And they — and we — will be poorer for it.

And to the kids camped out down on Wall Street: Look at the phone in your hand. Look at the rat-infested subway. Visit the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, then visit a housing project in the South Bronx. Which world do you want to live in?

[H/T Instapundit]

From Christianity Today:

Rob Bell is reportedly working on a television drama called Stronger with Carlton Cuse, executive producer and screenwriter for the show Lost, according to New York magazine and Deadline.

New York's Vulture site reports that the show will be loosely based on Bell's life story as a musician and eventual founder of his church, Mars Hill Bible Church. The show will feature a musician named Tom Stronger who ends up becoming a benefactor and spiritual guide, the site reports. Josef Adalian writes:

While based on biblical principles, Bell's brand of spirituality is not about hard-core evangelical, fire-and-brimstone teachings. Instead, his goal is to service folks' spiritual needs without the overlay of religious dogma (see also: Oprah). Stronger is similarly expected to explore spiritual themes but without being as on-the-nose as other recent series that have tackled these issues, such as 7th Heaven and Touched by an Angel. There's also expected to be a narrative twist to the project that will make it a bit unconventional, but for now, that detail is being kept secret (this show is from a Lost-ie after all).

. . .

The author of controversial Love Wins announced last week that he would leave his church to move to Los Angeles and launch a tour. Shane Hipps will take over preaching at Mars Hill Bible Church in the spring after Bell leaves.

"There are two kinds of grief. One is the grief you feel when someone dies or you find out you have cancer. The other is kind of grief you feel when your child goes off to college," Hipps said in a statement to Christianity Today. "The second grief is mingled with joy, and hope, and gratitude. Our grief is clearly the second kind. Rob is graduating, and we send him with sadness and joy into a big world."

[tip o' the hat to our friend Phil over at Brandywine Books]

Abraham Piper reports: "Soon after The Simpsons debuted, People Magazine quoted Barbara Bush as saying it was one the stupidest things she’d ever seen. Here’s is Marge’s respectful response . . ."



And here is Mrs. Bush’s response:

Dear Marge,

How kind of you to write. I’m glad you spoke your mind; I foolishly didn’t know you had one.

I am looking at a picture of you, depicted on a plastic cup, with your blue hair filled with pink birds peeking out all over. Evidently, you and your charming family — Lisa, Homer, Bart and Maggie — are camping out. It is a nice family scene. Clearly you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.

Please forgive a loose tongue.

Warmly,

Barbara Bush

P.S. Homer looks like a handsome fella!

The new NFL season is about to kick off. Any thoughts on who will make it to the Superbowl this year? Leave your predictions in the comments.

I had a meeting yesterday with a fellow in our church who has been unemployed for several months now. His wife now works two jobs, he is on unemployment and daily sending out resumes and appearing for interviews for things he is vastly overqualified for (which, ironically, does not help him get those jobs), and basically just trusting God. If anybody had a reason for envy, this dude's got it. But as we started talking about the economy in general he said something I'll never forget: "I love rich people."

Why? Because he's smart enough to know it's not poor people handing out jobs. My friend was/is a designer of kitchens (mostly cabinetry). In his line of work, it's rich people who bring him into company employ and it's rich people who (typically) remodel their kitchens or build houses with fancy new ones.

In this current election cycle we are hearing more class warfare rhetoric. A lot it boils down to further punishing rich people -- they don't pay enough taxes or what-have-you -- and a lot of it is calculated to stir up envy and resentment. This post from Kevin DeYoung today complements my conversation with my friend yesterday. An excerpt:

I thought it might be worthwhile to think about where private sector jobs come from. Most basically, new jobs come from people with money to spend who want to spend their money on more people. This means:

(1) The employer must have money. He may spend his own money. Or he may borrow money from investors or the bank. But somehow he has to have money.

(2)The employer must believe that spending his money on new employees will be good for his business. We may wish that employers hired people just cuz. But that’s not the way the world works. When employers want to be charitable they give to church or to their alma mater. But with their business they know they need to make money. Consequently, they hire new workers only when they believe that paying more people will eventually be offset by making more money.

(3) The employer must be willing to take a risk. Very few new hires are sure things. Employers don’t know exactly what they are getting with their new employees. More important, they don’t know what will happen with their profits. They follow trends and track receipts and keep money in reserve, but in the end every expansion of business is a risk.

(4) The employer must be somewhat confident in his projection of the future. Yes, risk is inevitable. But shrewd businesses look to minimize risk. They want to know what their taxes will be, whether existing laws will be fairly enforced, what regulations will be like, what’s happening with their competitors, what’s happening with the prices of things they need to buy, what’s happening with markets overseas. There are a thousand things they’d like to know. They can’t know them all. But the more predictable their future looks, the more apt they will be to take risks.

This is just basic economics. The rest is good too.

As we near voting time, let's consider tuning out the rhetoric that would have us either punishing the rich or the poor and think logically, not emotionally or resentfully about taxes, jobs, and economics. Let's not hate our neighbor because he has what we want. We may end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Last summer, I was extremely blessed to be able to go to Oxford, England, to visit my oldest son during his five-week semester at Christ Church College, Oxford University. It was an awesome trip.

Ridiculously . . . I got to go to Europe again this year. This time on a nine day tour with my youngest son's soccer club (they are in red in the picture to the left. The other team is a British club). We saw four professional matches - including an amazing game (the Spanish Super Cup) featuring Barcelona versus Real Madrid, and showcasing Messi and Ronaldo, arguably the two best players on the planet. Blake's team also played four matches, two in England and two in Spain, and won three out of four!

It was exhausting and incredible. If you're interested in seeing some pictures and reading about it, I posted daily reports on my solo blog, here.

This graph is revelatory.



[Source]

In his typically cheeky way, Doug Wilson comments:

For every gallon of gas that is sold in the United States, on average, the local, state and federal taxes come out to 48 cents. The average profit taken away from every gallon of gas by Exxon is --brace yourselves for unsavory news about the oil buccaneers -- 2 cents. If you don't like oil profiteering, then you really have to learn how to see our public servants as the equivalent of 24 Exxons, stacked on top of your travel plans like they were so many leeches.

Exxon feels free to take that 2 cents because they explored, researched, drilled, transported, refined, transported, and sold the gas that you were interested in buying. The government is entitled to it . . . why?

God says not to steal, and not even to think about stealing by means of coveting. We have to learn that our bad attitude toward free enterprise is caused by the larceny in our hearts. We think the way we do about oil companies because we want a piece of the action, for nothing. We don't think that way about predatory taxation for the same reason that one thief doesn't see the larceny in the heart of his fellow thieves. We are looking for the kickback.

As a wise man posted somewhere, "It's not theft if you have to fill out a form." So the devotional thought for the morning is that Jesus wants you to feel sorry for Exxon. And when we hear this call to radical discipleship, our faith staggers. Who can do these things? And the reply comes, comforting our hearts, that with God all things are possible.