Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews and the Boston Tea Party

This is a hilarious YouTube video of Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews, being funny, and throwing a lot of cake frosting (or aomething) around.

The two of them are pretending to replay the Boston Tea Party (although that event took place several years before the actual Revolutionary War). But it's fun. The video is about 11 minutes long.

Air conditioning makes it hotter

Recent reports indicate that Europeans are suffering seriously from the heat, including several deaths. Most buildings in Europe are not air-conditioned.

I saw a news report on that situation. A European woman was asked whether she thought that more buildings should be air-conditioned. She did not think so. Apparently, her reasons had to do with a fact that we, in North America, seldom consider. That is that running air conditioning increases the temperature.

Why is that? Because running a motor in an air conditioning device generates heat. If you don't believe this, find an air conditioning device that is where you can feel the output. You will feel heat. 

The laws of thermodynamics, perhaps the most fundamental laws of physics, tell us that moving parts in a device generate heat, from friction, and other consequences of the system. The heat in an air-conditioned building is removed to the outside.  

See this article: Air conditioning may be making cities even hotter - Earth.com

Thanks for reading!

Praying ACTS

 

Adoration (honoring God for His attributes)

Confession (asking forgiveness for things we shouldn’t have done, and for things we didn’t do, but should have.)

Thanksgiving (Thanking God for things He has done.

Supplication (Asking God for things we need, or that other people need)

I don't know where this came from. Sorry.

N. T. Wright on women in ministry

Relevant reports on scholar N. T. Wright's view of the appropriateness of women in ministry.

Thanks for reading.

Great Biblical fathers

 

It's Juneteenth

 It's Juneteenth.

Sunspots 1000

 

Things I have spotted that may be of interest to you:

Joel Duff has posted another serious article about why there are no dinosaurs now, if they survived the Flood. 

Gozmodo reports that pedestrians prefer to make choices to the left. We don't know why.

SciTech Daily discusses how a large stone was probably moved a few hundred kilometers to its current location in Stonehenge.

Relevant reports on a planned examination of what could be the remains of Noah's Ark. I tried to find a reference to this endeavor on the Answers in Genesis web site, but did not find such. (There are a lot of references to Noah's Ark!) There have been a number of studies, using various means, proposed, and perhaps carried out, and, so far, there don't seem to be any unambiguous remains of the Ark.

Thanks for reading.

Happy birthday, President Trump

Happy birthday to President Donald Trump!

I'm not a big fan of President Trump. But I believe that either God wanted him to be President, or God allowed him to be President.

Trump's biggest accomplishment? Getting the COVID vaccine produced in an amazingly short time. That was worth a Nobel Prize. (He didn't get one)

Why am I not a big fan? 

1. The Bible indicates that humans are to care for God's creation, The Trump administration, unfortunately, has treated the world around us as something to exploit, and has failed to protect non-human species, and the environment as a whole, with respect and care.

2. The Bible indicates that aliens and foreigners should be well treated. Trump has presided over treating them poorly.

3. Trump has supported racism in a number of ways.

4. Trump has done a lot of things that have been designed to glorify himself and his name. He's been proud. He has used his position to his own advantage. He has claimed expertise in areas where he is ignorant.

5. Trump keeps trying to erase history, for example of slavery, and of his lost election.

6. Trump told us, when running for the Presidency, that he would take vengeance on his perceived enemies. The Bible says that that is God's business.

7. Trump has ignored the Golden Rule, the heart of Christ's teaching.

All of what I see as Trump's failings have been supported by others, including many who claim they follow the Bible, but are going against Christ's teachings.

Thanks for reading.

sunspots 999

 

Viet Nam Awesome has an article on caves in Viet Nam, including the largest known cave in the world. The Wikipedia article on the cave states that it is so large that a Boeing 747 could fit in it without touching the cave at its sides.

According to Politico, congress apparently has defeated action that would have eliminated the protections of the Endangered Species Act.

Joel Duff keeps publishing great articles, examining the claims of young-earth creationists. In this one, he argues strongly that foxes show that the young-earth claim that many new species arose after a world-wide flood, a few thousand years ago, cannot be supported, using foxes as his evidence.

Live Science reports on the great amounts of fungal networks on earth. 

The importance of the Resurrection

 It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of the Resurrection!

Women in ministry

See this post on the appropriateness (or not) of women in ministry. The search bar in that post also leads to several essays on particular women of the Bible.

Thankis for reading!

Lichens are formed from more than one organism, and they are important

lichens, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, USA

Lichens are inconspicuous entities, usually. They don't stand up high. Most of them aren't colorful. They are interesting, and important.

One interesting aspect of lichens is that they are made up of two or more types of organism, I was taught, and taught, that these were a fungus and an alga. The fungus provided structure and protection for the alga, and the alga provided food, from photosynthesis. That's true, but not true of all lichens. Some of them are a combination of an alga, and a yeast and/or a bacterium. 

Since they are more than one type, they can't reproduce as most organisms do -- by producing a copy of themselves. Lichens increase in numbers when a piece of a lichen breaks off.

Lichens are able to grow where other organisms, or groups of organisms, can't. They are capable of growing on bare rock or concrete, perhaps even on metal. For more about that, see here.

Although lichens are small, there are so many of them in some Arctic regions that they furnish much of the food for reindeer populations.

Thanks for reading!

 

dementia isn't just forgetting

Dementia is a heartbreaking phenomenon. People forget things you'd never suppose that they would, such as old friends, or where to look for things in the kitchen drawers, or what they had for a recent meal.

But, it seems, people with dementia can "remember" things that didn't happen. In some ways, that's more upsetting to the caregiver than forgetting. A dementia patient may emphatically say that they've been somewhere that you know that they haven't, for example.

God help caregivers! (and people with dementia)

Science as part of humanity's responsibility

What is science? The Project Gutenberg dictionary says: Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.

Knowledge, generally, is commended in the life of Solomon: 1 Kings 4:31 For he was wiser than all men—wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations all around. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered one thousand five. 33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows out of the wall; he also spoke of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. 

Solomon's works specifically included many kinds of living things. 

Here are some more passages that indicate that scientific study of the natural world is a good thing:

Studying astronomy helps us to praise God more fully. Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. 2 Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

According to Job 12:7 “But ask the animals now, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. 8 Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. The fish of the sea will declare to you. 9 Who doesn’t know that in all these, Yahweh’s hand has done this, 10 in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind? 

This passage seems to encourage the study of the natural world.

Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." This verse encourages the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, which aligns with scientific inquiry.

Genesis 1 says that humans were to have dominion over other living beings. This implies that the lives of non-human organisms should be studied and the studies should be applied. Dominion requires knowledge.

Here's another passages that indicate that scientific study of the natural world is a good thing:

Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.

If all things were created for him, shouldn't we honor Christ by learning about them?

Thanks for reading.

 

I want to thank myself

19-year-old Mirra Andreeva won the French Open women's tennis tournament, a major competition, on June 6, 2026. Tennis tournament winners (and often losers) are expected to make a speech, acknowledging the skill of their opponent, thanking their trainers and coaches, and saying other appropriate things.

Andreeva wore a jacket with the words “I want to thank myself” during the trophy presentation and explained that she was pleased with her own reaction to adversity. Andreeva played well, and, no doubt, is to be applauded for this accomplishment. But her slogan reminds me of one of humanity's most common flaws -- pride. We often praise ourselves, or think that we deserve praise that we didn't get.

One of the most dramatic stories in the Bible is the story of the fiery furnace, in Daniel 3. King Nebuchadnezzar produced an enormous statue of himself, or had others do this. It was about 90 feet tall. Self-promotion on a grand scale. The king had all of the important people in the kingdom brought together, and, at a signal from the band, they were supposed to worship the great statue.

But that self-promotion didn't amount to much. God sent an angel to rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from a fiery furnace, and Nebuchadnezzar realized that people should not be worshiping a statue of himself, or any other gods but the God of Israel.

I wish Andreeva the best. She has accomplished an important milestone in what may be a distinguished career. But she didn't do it by herself. God gave her strength and accuracy and endurance. God allowed her to have good coaching and training. Andreeva's opponent in the French Open finals had to play a few more games than Andreeva did, because she wasn't, it was thought, good enough to win an automatic berth in the tournament, and so she was fatigued for a reason that didn't affect Andreeva.

Pride goes before a fall. Politicians, entertainers, athletes, bloggers do not do things by themselves. May I honor God, not me.

Thanks for reading.