Imperial Valley Christian Center

John Podhoretz has a great review of the new movie United 93, about the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11, here. The film opens tomorrow, April 28. It has a 90% rating at Rotten Tomatoes which means that the vast majority of movie critics think it's a great movie. Here's a blurb from the review:

In the film's final 32 minutes, the passengers and crew become, as Greengrass has said, "the first people to live in the post-9/11 world." They gather information quickly, including word that a third plane has struck the Pentagon. The men who choose to storm the cockpit don't give speeches about their intentions. They simply decide they must do something, and they know there is a pilot among the passengers who might be able to land the plane. They don't intend to die. They intend to win.

Well, I'm planning to go see it.

Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth, i.e. he came to make it possible for God's will to take place in people's lives, for God's power unto salvation, deliverance, healing, safety, protection and wholeness to show up in peoples lives. He has given us, his disciples, the authority to establish the kingdom of God on the earth, he said that whatever we bind or forbid on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever we loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Audio: MP3    Large  (Good for burning a CD)    Small  (Good just for listening.)

Video:
    Quicktime:    Broadband    56kModem    Podcast
    WMF:    Broadband    56kModem

If I could start a meme it would be this: Rory O'Shea Was Here. That's the name of a movie (In England it was distributed as, Inside I'm Dancing.) Becky and I watched the other day. It's the story of two young, Irish men, confined to wheelchairs who meet in a long term care facility. The one, Rory O'Shea, suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and is able only to use two fingers but can still talk and is a smart aleck, rabble rouser. The other, Michael Connolloy, suffers from Cerebral Palsy, and although he has greater use of his hands arms and legs he has great difficulty speaking, and no one but Rory can understand him.

The action revolves around the two friends trying to move out of the group home to live on their own. It's a pretty funny movie but at the same time it shows the world treating these two men, who still have dreams and desires and thoughts, as somewhat subhuman and repulsive. At the end of the movie Rory is in a hospital bed hooked up to oxygen, when Michael comes to visit him. Rory tells him to look around the room at all of the equipment he's hooked up to and says, apparently sarcastically, "Rory O'Shea was here." Here was a man who had dreams,who wanted to do something in the world, who wanted to exist, but whose  existence the world barely recognized. Rory O'Shea was here! If you decide to rent this movie be forewarned that the f word is used quite profusely, throughout.

Drudge had a link to this map which shows gas prices around the country. I guess we should all move to Montana.

This, via Dave Barry, about a town in England where people keep fishing motorists  out of a local stream where they have been led by their GPS navigation systems. One woman who has the motorist dry out after wards said this:

Mrs Bennett’s tumble dryer has been working overtime, helping drivers to dry out. She added: “The other day my husband came home and I had to explain why there was a van driver’s trousers in our tumble dryer. He was sitting in his cab, shivering in his boxer shorts.”

Jesus said that the gates of Hell are not supposed to prevail against the Church. He said he would give us the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e. the authority to establish God's redemptive plan on the earth. He's given us the authority to cause God's will to be done on the earth. He's given us authority to cause God's power unto salvation, healing, deliverance, safety, wholeness to come into the lives of people.

Audio: MP3    Large (Good for burning your own CD)    Small (Good just for listening.)

Video:
    Quicktime:    Podcast    Broadband    56k modem
    WMF:    Broadband    56k modem

I don't usually post about political stuff or foreign affairs but all this talk about Iran and nuclear weapons has gotten under my skin lately so I thought I would share a few interesting articles about what's been happening in Iran.

First off a statement from the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad :

TEHRAN, Iran - The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

Okay this is from the, Bambi was a cartoon department.

Using traps baited with honey buns and doughnuts, wildlife officials Friday tried to capture a black bear that killed a 6-year-old girl and critically injured her mother and 2-year-old brother.

The family had been at a pool below a waterfall in the Cherokee National Forest on Thursday afternoon when the bear attacked, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said.

Witnesses said the bear snatched up the boy in its mouth as the mother and other visitors at the Chilhowee campground tried to fend it off with sticks and rocks, said Dan Hicks, a spokesman for the agency.

The 6-year-old girl ran away but was later found dead about 100 yards down the trail, with a bear standing over her, authorities said.

Read the rest of the story here.

Well my mom has been saying this for years, but a new study shows that:

… working for yourself will make you much happier than those employed by others, according to research.

People who run their own businesses have such flexibility and independence that they enjoy far greater job satisfaction, experts claim.

Read the rest here.

Really interesting article on the history of Islamic Imperialism by an expert, Efraim Karsh, who is the head of Mediterranean Studies at Kings College, University of London. Just a couple of reminders about Islamic history while we're on the subject. These are facts most westerners don't know or don't remember but which seem particularly important given our current history.

- During his life Mohammad had begun the conquest of the Arabian peninsula but after he died the Islamic empire's expansion exploded in an almost unbelievable way. The Islamic armies conquered most of what used to be the Roman empire, reaching from India to Spain within a hundred years of Mohammed's death.

- The populations conquered by the Moslem armies were for the most part Christian. The Christians were not forced to convert to Islam but were forced to submit to second class citizenship, i.e. "Dhimmis," those who had entered into peace treaties with the Islamic Armies. They were taxed, kept from building new churches or repairing old ones. It was against the law for the Christians to evangelize. They could not serve in certain jobs etc. The result was that the Christian population of the invaded countries virtually disappeared. It's amazing to me that there are still Christians in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran. What a testament to their faithfulness.

- Islam was on the verge of conquering all of Europe, invading France from their colony in Spain, when they were defeated at the Battle of Tours on Oct. 10, 732 by Charles Martel, Charles the Hammer.

- The Islamic invasions continued under several different dynasties. During this period the armies of Islam kept picking away at Europe sometimes gaining ground sometimes loosing it. Sicily was conquered. Rome was sacked. Athens was invaded. Bulgaria was conquered etc., etc., etc. The most successful of the muslim dynasties were the Turks, who under Suleiman The Magnificent marched an army of 240,000 people to the gates of Vienna, Austria in 1529, but were unable to capture it.  In 1672 the Turks attacked and subjugated Poland. (Now that's getting a little far north.) In 1683 the Turks again besieged Vienna but were routed.