Blogwatching

Midwest Conservative Journal takes Cal Thomas to task for a surprisingly dumb and offensive statement he made in a recent column.

Andrea Harris and Glenn Reynolds take down that pharisaical Christian pacifist Stanley Hauerwas. People like him and Jerry Falwell are just flip sides of the same sorry coin. Also, I like Reynolds' prayer in response to Hauerwas' prayer for America to be smited.

JunkYard Blog also has something to say about terrorist-coddling "Christians".

Megan McArdle has a funny post about why some people prefer communism.

Many Thanks!

I would like to thank Martin Roth for adding me to his Christian Blog List.

This looks cool...

Department of Theology at University of Blogistan

Palestinian Christianity?

Midwest Conservative Journal comments on this appalling item. I have often wondered where Palestinian Christians stand on the homicide bombings carried out against innocent Israeli citizens. If Father Attallah Hanna is representative of the views of Palestinian Christians, then it sounds like these "Christians" have joined the culture of death that has consumed the Palestinian Muslims.

What I would like to ask Father Attallah Hanna is this: How could you, as a Christian, support the murder of little Jewish girls and little Christian girls?

And how could you support teaching little Muslim girls to hate?

Reading Assignment

Last week, Martin Roth Online had a link to this interesting article in Regeneration Quarterly on how Playboy and Hugh Hefner's "Playboy Philosophy" have manipulated our culture:

The Playboy Philosophy, which requires women to be thin, infertile, and always available, essentially requires childlessness. And you can bet your birth control packet that abortion is the natural bedfellow of the successful playboy. The Playboy Foundation, the (ahem) philanthropic wing of Playboy Enterprises, provides grants and donations to a wide range of projects, most involving reproductive rights and freedom of speech—industry code for promoting sexual license as a natural right and abortion as a failsafe guarantee. Hence the heavy support of the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and similarly single-minded organizations. On the playboyenterprises.com Web site you can witness the Playboy bunny icon digitally morphing, with breathtaking symbolic audacity, into a dove of peace winging its way around the world. Why is he so at peace? Because Hefner has made the world safe for a 50 percent divorce rate, guaranteeing him a constant stream of beautiful and financially vulnerable young women.

Of course, Hugh Hefner is on the side of women's liberation—as long as it supports his "incredible machine that brings to me the most beautiful young women . . . already wanting to be . . . part of my life." What could be better for an irresponsible and sexually aggressive male than an entire culture that views women as sex objects, views pregnancy as a disease, and offers abortion as its cure?

Purple Rules!

Ananova: M&M fans choose purple.

Via Daily Pundit.

This is no surprise...

Name Change

I've changed the name of this blog to LilacRose Blog. I wanted something catchier, but I never could get it right. First, it was "Thorns and All". Then I realized that it had an unfortunate abbreviation. Nope, this ain't that kind of blog. So I changed it to "Roses, Thorns and All". I never warmed up to that one. So I renamed it one more time...and no, I didn't change it for this reason. The new name isn't catchy, but I like it. I won't be changing it again.

Legislative Evilness

I remember reading about the "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act" several months ago, although it was known as the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act" back then. This post on Happy Fun Pundit has reminded me that this odious bill still needs to be defeated. This bill would make a criminal out of anyone who wants to copy digital media for their own use. All digital media would require encryption. Any currently existing hardware or software would be unable to access this encrypted digital media. New hardware and software would be needed to access the encrypted data. Read Happy Fun Pundit's post and then visit Help Stop the CBDTPA and Stop Policeware for more information on this bill. Then sign this petition (as I did a few months ago). Contacting your Senators and Representative isn't a bad idea either. Who knows...they may actually listen.

More on Padilla

JunkYardBlog has more on John Doe #2 and Jose Padilla here, here, here and here. Bryan Preston has refrained from any conspiracy-mongering and simply presents the information, letting readers draw their own conclusions. My conclusion? Well, JD#2 and Padilla do look very much alike, except that the sketch of JD#2 shows him to be more square-jawed than Padilla. I've never believed that there was no John Doe #2. I'm not convinced that JD#2 is Padilla, but I think it's a possiblity that should be investigated.

Worst Pop Song Lyrics

E-Pression recently had a contest looking for the worst pop song lyrics. When I read of the contest, my first thought was, "Anything by Bon Jovi!" However, I ended up nominating "The Warrior" by Scandal. I always though that song was stupid, especially the line "follow me stereo jungle child". What on earth does that even mean?

Anyway, Zorak posted the contest winners and runners-up. My nomination was posted under "Songs I like, while guiltily admitting that the lyrics are bad." A couple of the winners/runners-up are "guilty pleasures" for me, too: "Allstar" by Smashmouth and "A Horse with No Name" by America.

Thanks to Zorak for letting me play, and thanks for linking to me in the contest results. In return, I've added E-Pression to my "Blog-Oh-Rama" on the sidebar.

BTW, that Poison song has no relation to how I came up with the name of this blog. In fact, after being reminded of that song, I almost want to change the name.

Blogwatching

Interesting item from The Corner's Rod Dreher. Troubled people who want answers will look elsewhere when liberal theologians water down Christianity until it's just a bunch of relativist, feel-good nonsense.

Lileks ridicules "edgy" profanity-packed TV shows and John Cougar Mellencamp. What more could you ask for?

"John Doe #2" = Jose Padilla?

Bryan, I'm thinking exactly what you're thinking.

Miscellany

I've added links to some favorite blogs on the sidebar. Although some are obvious ones that everybody links to, I tried to include some blogs that I think deserve more attention. There are also links to political forums and to news and opinion sites.

The season premier of Farscape aired last night...great episode! I wondered where they were going with the show after the season three finale. This new episode was not at all what I expected, which is a good thing.

A lot of blogs are linking to this site, where you can create your own personal South Park character. Here's mine. Not too flattering, but it is South Park after all.

Links to Other Blogs

Hopefully, sometime this weekend I'll be able to get around to adding some links along the side to my favorite blogs. Off the top of my head, three of my favorites are JunkYardBlog, Anne Wilson and Croooow Blog (a fellow MSTie). Check them out!

The Sorry State of Music Today

HappyFunPundit gets it right on why the music industry is in such pathetic shape. Hint: it's not file sharing. Some excerpts:

The problem today is that groups with real talent aren't being allowed to grow. Many classic artists started out slowly in record sales, and some never had big hits at all when they were making records. It took a large body of work to establish a fan base. [...]

As long as the record industry continues to favor focus groups and 'packaged' bands, it will continue to neglect real talent, and it will continue to decline. File sharing has nothing to do with it.

All I can add to that is an "Amen"!

Christian Blogs

I was looking for some blogs by Christians when I first started surfing blogs. There are a bunch of links at Martin Roth Online. I haven't had a chance to explore all these blogs yet, so I don't know if any of them are by fellow Lutherans. Maybe I'll submit this blog to Martin Roth if I ever get up the nerve. I have no readers right now, which is probably a good thing.

Ya-Ya...right...

I was blogsurfing this evening and found this on E-Pression, the Ya-Ya Name Generator. I've never even heard of this book and apparently there's a movie coming out soon. I ran my name through the generator and came up with...Duchess Curses-Like-a-Sailor. Well, only if I get really, really angry.

Tweaking the blog template...

I think I'm happy with this blog template now. I've made some more adjustments so that it finally looks good in IE6, Netscape 6 and Opera 6. I'm still learning when it comes to HTML. Although I've maintained a memorial site for my late brother for almost five years, my HTML skills are at best intermediate. Actually, they're probably not even that good.

I've noticed that more and more websites are being optimized for a 1024x768 screen area setting. This is no problem at work, because I have a huge monitor and that setting looks good (not that I do much web browsing at work). At home, I have a smaller monitor, and 800x600 looks best. However, I went ahead and changed it today because I got tired of having to scroll horizontally all the time. I adjusted my display setting to use larger fonts to make up for everything being so much smaller. I'm not completely happy with it, but I guess I'll have to get used to it.