I'M GOIN' HOME!

From The Snake Pit (1948)

THE WORLD'S WEALTH

This might broaden your understanding of the potential severity of the US going into recession¦

Apart from having the largest (by capitalisation) stock market in the World, this is why the US is so important in the Global Financial System¦

The map renames US states after countries that have similar GDPs to the state in question¦

GDP is the measure of national income and output for a given country's economy. GDP = Total market value of all final goods and services produced within the country in a given period of time.

LIVING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT

First, watch this. The skating here has got to be the best I have ever seen performed.



(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6QBtZc6En1g)

Chinese pair Shen & Zhao performed this wonderfully ...but were allegedly cheated out of the winning place by corrupt judges in 1999. Apparently that's nothing unusual in the figure skating world. (The "new" points system, I'm told, only protects the judges as they are now anonymous, as you are no longer told how the individual judges voted).

And concerning disappointment, view this

(http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en )

And if you liked that, be inspired by the rough beauty of the Irish landscape:



More on disappointment.

HELL

I read this today in Jim Wallis' new book Seven Ways to Change the World and I can't think of a better response:

Questioner, to Billy Graham on his last visit to Harvard:

'Since Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me" doesn't that mean people from other religions - Jews and the rest - are going to hell?'

Billy replied, 'I'm sure glad God is the judge of people's hearts and not me! And I trust God to decide those questions justly and mercifully.'

The student was disappointed and pressed further, 'Well, what do you think God will decide?'

Graham demurred, 'Well, God doesn't really ask my advice on those matters.'

Shalom/Salaam/Pax!

Rowland Croucher
May 2008

GUNS AND GUN CONTROL

I have never understood the obsession with guns held by the American National Rifle Association (NRA). I read this somewhere on a Usenet newsgroup: 'I didn't much like the part in Michael Moore's movie where he doggedly pursued a confused and daft Charlton Heston. one of the most public faces of the NRA. It was clear the man was no longer in his prime, and that Moore was picking on someone with a clear handicap. However, when Heston was vibrant and sane, I found his views on morality and gun control to be either hateful or ignorant or both.' I can go along with that.

One of the most responded-to articles on the John Mark Ministries' website is 'Oxymoron of the month: Sporting Shooters' which concluded: 'Shooters are not sportsmen, they're vandals.' See this response, for example.

SATAN / THE DEVIL / EVIL

WHY TO HUMANS START WARS (AND OTHER CONFLICTS)?

50 Years in 3 minutes.

Turn up the volume, sit back and survey a review of 50 years of history in less than 3 minutes!

Thanks to a Billy Joel song and some guy from the University of Chicago with a lot of time to Google! If you like it, play again and you will see and hear things you missed first time.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~yli5/Flash/Fire.