In terms of God's ownership, we yield ourselves to Him as a living and continual offering and sacrifice (Rom. 12:1). We give our children to Him in baptism from infancy, not because of some mystical meaning, but because we confess thereby God's property rights over us and our children, and we vow to bring up our children as God's possession. We tithe, beacue God, who owns all of us, requires a percentage for His work. All that we have, and all that we are, our persons, families, possessions, and time, bleong to the Lord. The whole meaning of the festivals and of circumcision-baptism, the passover-communion, and all rites and ordinances of the life of worship, simply set forth differing aspects of God's property rights over us, and His gracious covenant to care for His own. When we tithe, baptize our children, and obey God's law, we confess thereby that we are not our own, but that we have been bought back by the lord at a price, and we are therefore totally His possession. (R.J. Rushdoony, "Law and Society", p. 692. Vallecito, California: Ross House Books, 1986)

We do not believe that the rite of baptism bestows salvation upon an infant from that very moment. It is covenantal: a dedication, an offering, an extension of a parent's commitment to live out their new life as children of the Father - it is obedience to the One whose property they are. I do believe, however, that infants who die in infancy and are the offspring of faithful parents are received into heaven by the God who promises in His covenant that cannot be broken that He will bless covenant obedience from His subjects to their future generations, and make them fruitful. This is an aspect of how one's salvation does not stop as a mere personal fact, but has social implications: covenant obedience is not a passive, internal, metaphysical fact, but is an acting, working, influential, consequential vitality.

Autumn, together with Spring, are the two most creative seasons of the year. I think the milder weather and the anticipation of something new (hot/cold) helps.

I picked up my car today: finally got some fading paint removed and fresh layers of paint put down in its place. The difference between this Hyundai dealership and the other one I've been to makes them antithetical. Tremendous and quick service, and the luxuries and treatment of a high-end dealer. Anyway, to continue with the autumn theme, the guy who drives out to my place to take me to the dealership to pick up my car is a retiree and he recommended a German restaurant that is not too far from where I live and that I am eager to try. Bratwurst, sauerkraut, strudel and a Warsteiner Premium Dunkel in the fall sounds like it would hit the spot. Known as the Bavarian Brathaus or "House of Bratwurst", one resource describes this restaurant as "The only German Bavarian restaurant in the Sandhills - homemade bratwurst and strudel". How could you not want a piece of that?

As you may have already noticed, if you are one of the millions of habitual YouTube viewers, today YouTube started displaying ad overlays within videos posted to this popular video-sharing website. Fifteen seconds into a video, a mostly transparent ad will take up the lower part of the viewport for approximately 10 seconds (the ads are clickable if you want to visit the website behind the ad). The commercialization is undesirable but inevitable and good for YouTube, and the choice of method for displaying the ads could have been more intrusive and frustrating.

Finally, each year the Red Sox television broadcast seems to have a hilarious half inning, and last year's manifestation was a guest appearance by Denis Leary in which he discovered that Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis is Jewish, and Leary proceeds to have fun at Mel Gibson's expense.

Fall classes have begun: I am taking two classes online.

My new place is larger and cleaner, with a good view of the western and southern sky - enabling me to view stars as opposed to the trees I had become accustomed to at my previous residence. The process of packing, updating mailing/billing addresses, and cleaning my old apartment made for an undelightful weekend a couple weekends ago, but I am now settled in. My apartment building and those outside my windows are mostly vacant and awaiting their first tenants, so for the moment this is a rather private area.

Perhaps you've heard of the modern artist - or "composer" - whose current major work is the world's longest piano composition. Every year or so he plays a single note of his composition. That is how I think of my college career: one class or two courses every year or so: really drawn out. Probably as dubious a collegiate career as that composer's composition is dubious art. For those keeping track of my errant pursuit of this modern American necessity, I am undertaking two college courses this autumn: one focusing on PHP-driven websites and the other on something regarding databases; these will be of some use and interest to me.

With autumn approaching, I can anticipate not only the resumption of classes and cooler weather, but playoff baseball. With somewhere around 35 games to go in the regular season, divisional match-ups are taking on a playoff-like intensity as the crowds try to cheer their teams into the postseason. As it has been in recent years, the Phillies are right there in the chase but facing many obstacles.

That's a brief update to break the silence of this blog. Perhaps my next post will not be so long in coming.

Currently listening:
Bellatrix
by Rene Gruss

Advertisements appear as small unobtrusive eight-second still-image boxes in the lower-left corner, as well as breaks in the show for a single advertisement. These are the same ads you see on television, only in most cases clickable so you can visit a website; while most advertisements occur at natural breaks in the show you are watching, I have found a few shows where they interrupt at odd moments.

Currently in this release, stations are not airing live, continually updating content. There are just maybe five or fifteen programs you can choose to watch on a channel, just to get a feel for how Joost will work and hopefully provide feedback to the developers.

I was pleased to find a couple sci-fi stations, including a Warner Brothers sci-fi station that features some old Babylon 5 episodes. In all I've found 14 channels that I particularly like, such as a couple sci-fi channels, a full-length movie channel, multiple National Geographic channels, and some comedy channels among others. Joost is currently invite-only, but invitations are easy to come by. If you want an invite, let me know.

Apparently I am not as alone in this practice as I thought. Americans are showing a trend toward taking shorter and less vacations. I can relate to getting in a somewhat addictive rut, and not wanting to be completely disconnected from work and home lest I miss something important. As busy and time-consuming as work is, it can feel somewhat like home, and like one's calling, and where a lot of the people you know are. For me, when I get out of work there are so many things that I need to do, should be doing, or want to do around the house or town and am eager to either get busy making progress on those things or rather to escape to the peace, quiet, and rest of being at home.

Celebrating the Sabbath certainly helps bring rejuvenating rest - and this is a weekly event.

Holidays and adjacent half-days at work are frequent enough and timely, providing a good respite when work becomes especially tiresome. I prefer the short break over the long vacation. It is always harder to return to work and get back into the groove and catch up on things after each extra day away from the office.

I will probably save and take most of my vacation days toward the end of the year. I like to save good things for the end, for as long as possible. When I have to do something, or get motivated to start a task, I like to engulf myself in the task and work long and hard in one great sustained plunge, then take any breaks toward the end of the task and return to complete the work when there is very little left to do. I practice this at work: rather than taking lunch in the middle of my shift or at regular dining hours like most people do, I will delay my lunch until well beyond the half-way point of my work day, so I can ride my beginning-of-the-day energy as long as possible rather than breaking in the middle of the day and returning to essentially a second work day: the first half all over again in its entire length.

Being single and living by myself, I am less likely to find attraction in wandering off on a vacation by myself (I just don't see the point in making a habit of this) - and most of my friends my age have families and just cannot schedule such jaunts, and need to spend time with their families anyway... as they should. While I am single, there are plenty of things I can do here in town or at my own home to enjoy some rest, explore, or gain education in - if not culturally and experientially enriching as a typical get-away vacation would be, then at least they would hopeful be enriching in a practical and useful way.

Thinking of an odd get-away, I once blogged about the movie Danny Deckchair, in which an Australian man fastens many large helium-filled balloons to one of his deckchairs and, to his surprise, flies out of his backyard party and across a chunk of Australia. Seems the same thing has happened in real life.

1. Last Sunday, NBC's Dateline aired an inspiring two-hour special on a story examplifying the US Army principle of "no man left behind". Rescue on Roberts Ridge tells the story of a group of US Army Rangers who conducted a heroic yet ill-fated rescue attempt of a comrade who was lost within an enemy hot zone during one of the earliest battles of the 2002 campaign in Afghanistan, specifically in Operation Anaconda. I was impressed that the show did not use the opportunity for rhetoric against the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, but instead offered up a patriotic tribute to the men of the United States military.

2. This weekend CNN.com launched a beautiful redesign of their website.

3. Judge Roy Pearson lost his $54 million lawsuit against the family-owned dry cleaners that lost a pair of his pants. I think an ironic punishment for Mr. Pearson, along with being stripped of his position, would be for him to be ordered to work at the defendants' dry cleaning shop.

4. We've seen a Croc Hunter and a man who lives in the wild with bears, and now we are introduced to the Lion Whisperer. I like cats, but probably wouldn't care to frolic with grown lions.

5. A convert from extremist Islam in Britain says that people who think that Islamic terrorism is an angry response to Western culture just don't get it.

6. DivShare, a relatively new online file hosting service that I've mentioned before, continues to impress me. The two young guys running the site are doing everything right, and it is fun to watch their market share grow. Now VentureBeat has a favorable review of this online application.

1. My username is Krazy Celtic because my family is of Scottish ancestry and I enjoy Celtic things, whether the product of modern romanticizing from the days of Kipling or from ancient British history. Crazy is spelled with a K replacing the C because crazyceltic was already taken on Geocities (where I first hosted this blog), and though Krazy represents a misspelling that I do not usually like to see, the initials KC is more attractive to me in presentation than CC (closed captioning or carbon copy?).

2. My journal is titled Krazy Celtic's Hideout because like a hideout this blog was perceived by me to be my own small personal space on an internet crowded with millions of other websites. It has been a place for me to write - frequently at first but sparingly of late - for only a very small audience.

3. My subtitle is The personal weblog of Josh McInnis because that is my name and this is my blog.

4. My friends (links) page is called Other Blogs because because this simple classification fits with the minimalistic design and formal coloring of my blog.

5. My default userpic is the stony gray circle with a square gold Celtic knotwork because it fits the Celtic theme of my blog, is a versatile shape, and because I like the way the cracked stone circle that I created and upon which the Celtic knotwork is overlaid turned out.

Nevertheless, the drinking-age law is unfortunate and leads to unncessary hurt and penalties such as a family is currently facing in Virginia. A 16 year-old's parents threw a birthday party for him and his friends and purchased beer and wine for the party. They responsibly took the careful measures of confiscating car keys and ensuring that all party guests slept over at the house. Now the parents each face at least 2 years jail time apiece. This results in unnecessary suffering for the parents, hardship for the children who will be without the care of their parents (under state social services appointed care perhaps?), and a wasted slot in a nation that has too many overcrowded jails.

This family should have obeyed the law, because the law exists, but this particular law should not have been there in the first place. The government exists with one of its functions being to protect its inhabitants and ensure their freedom. Legislating what should be in the realm of the family steals freedom from the family and makes them slaves of the state. This is bound to create more hurt than help.

Fred Thompson is a former governor of Tennessee, and these days (and in former days) as an actor appears in Law and Order, and appeared in notable films such as The Hunt for the Red October and In the Line of Fire. His stance on key issues: he is anti-abortion, opposed to big government, and supportive of stronger borders. Regarding the issue that is mentioned the most among those evaluating candidates, he supports the war in Iraq.

He authored a timely feature piece for ABCradio.com, expounding on the background of the United States' first war in foreign lands - the war with the Barbary pirates of Tripoli, referenced in the first line of the U.S. Marine hymn, and in doing so makes subtle commentary on the America of today as he describes that prolonged (14 year) first U.S. war against Islamic extremists, which cannot but force the reader to draw connections with the present ongoing war against Al-qaida. Part of his unspoken commentary is that the young United States, uneager for war and not desirous of building and funding a standing army, nevertheless committed itself to protecting its sailing merchants and citizens from the radical aggression of the Islamic Barbary pirates, whose ambassador proclaimed before U.S. and British delegates in London that the pirates' abduction, torture, and enslavement of Americans was justified and commendable because their Prophet ordains such persecution of all who do not embrace Islam. At that time the United States mobilized a navy to defend its sailing merchants and citizens, and check this shameless aggression of the Barbary pirates. The United States did not back down from its trading ventures, nor did they succumb to hardships, losses, and stalemates as the struggle with Tripoli dragged on for fourteen years, but our nation's young military forces pressed on until they captured Tripoli and at least subdued the Barbary pirates. Fast forward to today, where our country's military is facing forces of the same extremist religious foundation, and our citizens have been attacked by and are in danger of these modern day Barbary pirates. We are used to everything in fast motion, and we want results quickly - we seem to not have the resolve, the fortitude, the pride, or the understanding of the principles behind the fight to tolerate a war that is dragging on into a number of years.

What Fred Thompson does outrightly make mention of is a personal point of interest: America's awareness of history. Foreigners and semi-astute citizens will tell you that America in general is not very aware of history and the past, not so much as we probably should be, or as other nations are. Thompson's take on this is different than mine, and interesting: that Americans are forward-thinking, moving to a future goal while leaving the past behind, not dwelling on the past as they press forward in hope. Sounds postmillenial, doesn't it?

Material on Fred Thompson's views is not as easy to come by as the casual searcher might like, and I would like to hear more about his particular views from his own mouth, but I am certain that will come when he commits to running for the Republican nomination. Once he commits, look out: he is alread third in Republican polls behind Giuliani and McCain, and he is not even a candidate yet! Furthermore, he is the only Republican candidate or potential candidate to secure a key speaking engagement at a dinner attended by the wealthy and powerful Republicans of Orange County. "Even Fred Thompson is only down six points to Clinton’s 46 percent in an April NBC-Wall Street Journal poll — impressive for a guy who hasn’t spent a dime campaigning and is till completely unknown to 45 percent of Americans," cites the National Review

Fred Thompson is a man the Republicans can rally behind, he is a plain talker that the common person can relate to and confident in, and he has the Reagan thing going for him... I hope he is in the race for the long haul.

Today I ponied up to the pharmacy to fill a prescription that I'm supposed to have been taking for cholesterol, but have been neglecting for some time now. In the months since I started working for my current employer, I had enjoyed a generous supply of samples of this medicine (she knew that I was having problems with my employer regarding receiving the medical insurance that was promised to me as a benefit for joining the company), so I never had to fill a prescription. In my previous job, I was spoiled with a terrific health insurance plan that required co-pays which were minimal or anything. So today, when I filled a prescription for the first time with my new insurance and was shocked by the triple figure copay for a month's supply of medicine, I realized what millions of Americans have already been complaining about - the high and often prohibitive, yet continually rising, medical costs in our country. Upon returning home, I found that contranemesis had linked to an article, "Why Is Medical Care So Expensive?", on this very subject, about how the controlling interference of the government in the medical industry, through legislative programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, have driven up prices elsewhere in the industry as the industry is forced to respond to what the government spends and legislates. The article is worth a read. The cost of medical care is more than just the hit on the wallet - contranemesis looks like it will discuss some of these ways in future blog entries.

As for me, rather than throwing away my money on preventive medicines, I can think of many ways to put money to better use - so that I can enjoy life while I still have it. I do not want to be so attached to this world that I live my life and spend my money on preventive medical care in a way that says that death is something to be feared, and this world as something precious to be clung to at all costs. As Screwtape says to Wormwood, that is a key step in drawing a soul away from heaven.

1. How to beat a traffic ticket in court [Story]
2. A Japanese researcher develops a robot that looks and moves like the researcher himself [Story]

Micah 4:5
"For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever."

Thinking from a postmillenial hermeneutic, I thought it would be interesting to look at clearer translations of this verse, and see if the distiction between "his god" and "the Lord our God" carries over accurately from the Hebrew into the English KJV translation, in the collective opinions of other translators. If it does, then this is an interesting distinguishing attribute of these two clauses. This verse is preceded by the exaltation of Zion, all men will flow to Zion to hear God's law and walk in his paths, nations will beat their sword into plowshares and spears into pruninghooks, and there will be no more war, every man being able to sit peacefully in his fruitful habitation. If some men are still walking in the name of their gods during this time of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and dominion of Christ's kingdom, then this verse can be applied by postmillenialists as evidence that the "millenial" reign of Christ will exist on this earth through His people. It points to a progressive taking of dominion in the world by the Church, because only in history can there still be men who "walk every one in the name of his god".

Looking at other translations of this verse, the contrast between "his god" and the "Lord our God" holds up, and this verse is presented by these translations more clearly as an "on the one hand/on the other hand" contrast.

"Even though the nations around us worship idols, we will follow the Lord our God forever and ever."
- New Living Translation

"All the nations may walk
in the name of their gods;
we will walk in the name of the Lord
our God for ever and ever."
- NIV

"For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever."
- English Standard Version

"For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever."
- Revised Standard Version

The "but" conjunction really makes a difference, helping the contrast and significance of the two clauses of Micah 4:5 stand out. Regarding the postmillenialism of this verse and passage, "Zion" and "Jerusalem" do not refer to historical, political, Jewish Israel. That is another topic exhaustively touched upon by theologians who know a whole lot more than I do, so you can chase down their books to read the arguments for (and against) that important interpretive detail.

Turning to your least favorite subject, myself

I started looking at houses (i.e. for first time buyers such as myself, jargon for actually physically visiting houses for sale that I am interested in) yesterday, checking out two of them. I'll look at four more on Saturday. I intend to choose one as an abode before the month is up. We shall see what transpires.

Rather than in my life, it seems like the action is at a certain zoo, where a veterinarian's forearm was bitten off by a crocodile. Yes, there are pictures of the forearm being grasped in the crocodile's jaws.

Also with spring comes the pollen, but baseball, the warmer weather, and the extended daylight hours make it worth it. This is now the second year that I have been adversely affected by the pollen in the air, though previously I had never been allergic to the airborne stuff. It coats my car in a yellow dust, and out of necessity and because it was warm (and because jury duty enabled me to have longer evenings of daylight, because I would return home earlier than if I was at work) I washed my car twice, and almost a third time over the weekend. However, trusting that it would rain later and seeking to indulge rather in running, I spent yet another weekend mostly outdoors, jolting my beer belly on the park trails.

In a return to an earlier era, I am without a television at the moment, which is ok, because I have baseball on my computer. Who cares about the NCAA championship this year anyway? Watching Florida celebrate two previous college championships (one in football and one in basketball) was enough to last a decade. With the absence of television, it is phenomenal how much easier it is to read, and to endure in straight hours of reading. Even the presence of a silent, dark television in the room kills my reading stamina. Where is my television? It is getting repaired.

Here is an oddity: I hardly have time to get everything done that I need to get done, but I do not feel like I am really accomplishing anything or working on anything big that would demand so much of my free time, and yet I do not have time even to eat dinner somedays. My work and my work hours take too much out of me, I think. As for this moment, I should assemble a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or something so that I can say that ate something tonight.

Speaking of these two web browsers, I am now probably 80% a Firefox user. I still have to use Internet Explorer for things such as MLB.TV (enables me to watch major league baseball games in streaming live broadcast over the internet) until I figure out why it is not working in Firefox. But for ordinary everyday browsing, Firefox is now my browser of choice. Again, just as with Google, Firefox is another trendy web choice among today's savvy users that I am only recently embracing. What separates Firefox apart is that is crashes less, and, best of all for frequent and curious internet users such as myself, is highly customizable. Firefox sports easily installed Add-ons, things which make surfing the web more tailored to the individual doing the browsing. For example, one of my favorite add-ons takes unclickable text links such as http://news.bbc.co.uk and automatically recognizes that text as a URL and makes it clickable like http://news.bbc.co.uk. There are hundreds of other Add-ons, some more advanced and specialized than others, such as community file sharing run through the browser, FTP clients built into the browser, and an add-on that enables you to use all that humongous storage space on your G-Mail e-mail account as an online hard drive. Another open-source (i.e. source code is freely available and the product is developed by teams of volunteers as a hobby) browser worth keeping an eye on is Flock, which is being engineered to be a "social browser", geared at making it easier to upload and share photos and other multimedia and build community with people of similar interests.

While trying to keep up with such things as baseball news, PHP, online web design journals, and web initiatives such as microformats (not employed on this blog, as is the case with so many techniques I am learning and practicing), I have sadly been unable to keep up with the dozens of blogs in my RSS Feedreader. I think I have 160 unread articles to sort through right now, and it is a losing battle. There are several blogs I could probably remove from my list though, to make keeping up less intimidating.

In the office at work I work off of two monitors side-by-side, linked into the same computer. I need that here at home.