Neener, neener

Hint: You really do have to pick the right smiley.
And, as is typically the case with multiple-guess tests, you have to be no less stupid then the test writer, who in this case didn't realize, or admit, that Pluto isn't a planet.

Are you stupid? Watch for trick questions

Sexual assault with robbery? A satire

This is based on a true story.
Hint: watch for a paradigm shift, when we switch to actual copies of the original emails.
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From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: January 31, 2005
Subject: Pray for my family

Dear Friends,
I just got off the phone with my wife. She was robbed this morning on a trip to town with our daughter. The robber didn't get much--only about $140--and it looks like insurance will cover most of it. The scary thing, though, is that he did threaten to do this again, on a regular basis, over the next few months. Please pray that he won't abuse anyone in the process.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: March 3, 2005
Subject: Pray for my family's safety

Well, it happened again, just yesterday afternoon. The same assailant struck again, and got another $140. And we haven't even gotten the insurance settlement from the last incident yet! I talked to someone at the police station, and they told me that they have no intention of doing anything about it. Apparently this assailant has powerful friends in high places and the law is on his side. So far my wife and daughter haven't been hurt, and they think I'm making too big a deal about this.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: April 4, 2005
Subject: Pray for the assailant

I got bold enough today to walk right up to the assailant who's robbed us three times now and asked him to stop. He was pretty brusque with me, assuring me that this is how he operates and hinting that if I interfered he'd get the law on me himself. For all he claims to be a kind and caring professional, from what I've heard of him I'm convinced he's armed and dangerous.

BTW, we got the insurance settlement for the original incident. They covered 80%. Apparently they get a lot of claims like this.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: July 12, 2005
Subject: More threats

Thanks to those who have been praying about this tense situation with my wife and daughter. The encounters are becoming more and more frequent. The assailant has been bombarding the latter with intense energy waves in an attempt to probe for some weakness in her that he can take advantage of. So far he hasn't found any, but we feel very vulnerable. Every time he confronts them, he won't release them until they've left him another $140. He's already gotten all kinds of personal information out of my wife, including where we live and even where I work. So no one here is likely to be safe from this man as long as he remains at large.


From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: August 14, 2005
Subject: Imminent Danger!

My wife returned home yesterday in tears. She'd had yet another run-in with her nemesis, and this time he openly bragged about his intentions. He even showed her where he would cut her if our daughter didn't concede to his demands. His constant probing has shown him that unless she changes her position on a very important matter, he's coming after both of them with his blade.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: September 6, 2005
Subject: Doom!

This man is determined now. He's picked the time and place for the assault, and assembled a gang of accomplices. They are determined to go forward with this, and have made dark but unspecified threats to me as to what would happen if they don't show up. I really don't know what else to do but pray.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: September 6, 2005
Subject: Reprieve!

Folks,
This is a major answer to prayer. We left the choice up to her, but our daughter has now conceded to the assailant's demands, and given up the position she's held so long. He says it's too late, though, to go back on his plans entirely. But rather than coming after my wife with the knife, he's changed the weapon to a drug-infested needle. My daugher will get a dose of the same, and he's confident that under the influence of the drug they will be compelled to do his will.

* * * * *

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: September 8, 2005
Subject: Update

As I wrote earlier, my wife is past her due date, but the baby is no longer in the breech position. The doctor wants to go ahead with the delivery before the weekend starts, so he's put her on Pitocin drip. Contractions have begun. Pray that all goes well.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: September 9, 2005
Subject: Report

The doctor reports that our daughter is under stress so he's going ahead with the planned C-section. Pray for a safe delivery.

From: Hermn Dorqlwicz
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Date: September 10, 2005
Subject: Latest Report

Well, it's just past midnight, and I'm proud to report that we are now the parents of a 6 pound 10 ounce baby girl! Mother and baby are fine. Everything went as planned, so they should be out of the hospital in another few days.

Thanks for praying.

Adam and Noah were tall, black and bearded

I've made a side study of anthropology and over the years I've collected quite a few Creation and Flood stories. But here's a new one I just ran across, from the Andamanese culture, most of which had no historic contact with the rest of the world prior to 1858 when a British penal colony was erected at Port Blair.

* * *
After Puluga had made the world, he created man and called him Tomo. He was black in colour like his modern-day descendants but much taller and bearded. Puluga showed Tomo how to use fire and especially how to cook pigs which in those days were easy to catch as they had neither ears nor noses. Later Puluga also created a woman whose name was Chan Elewadi. The original couple had two daughters and two sons. When pigs became plentiful enough to be a nuisance, the clever woman drilled holes into their snouts and heads, thereby enabling them to hear and see to avoid danger and procure food for themselves. Puluga then covered the whole land with jungle in which the newly-equipped pigs could hide, thereby becoming much more difficult to catch. Puluga came to the rescue of the people by showing Tomo how to hunt with the help of bow and arrows as well as how to build canoes and how to fish. He showed Chan Elewadi how to weave baskets, make fishing nets and to use ochre and white clay. He also set down a number of rules and regulations such as a prohibition on noisy work at night during the wet season. Puluga also gave the people their language, A-Pucikwar. In those days Puluga lived on Saddle Peak and being so near could visit and instruct his people. The canoes of those early days were not, according to legend, equipped with outriggers and were made of the hollowed out trunk of the pandanus tree which was said to have grown much bigger then. The creeks so characteristic of Greater Andaman are also said to have been made at that time: Tomo had harpooned a large fish which in its frantic efforts to escape hit the land repeatedly with its snout and caused the indentations that turned into useful creeks. Tomo himself was said to have lived to a great old age and to have seen his descendants increase in number to such a degree that the original homeland could no longer accommodate them all. Puluga then interfered again and had them all equipped with weapons, implements, fire and their own language before they scattered in pairs all over the country. Tomo and his wife later drowned and were turned into a whale and a small crab respectively.
Tomo's successor was his grandson, Kolwot, who distinguished himself by being the first to catch turtle. After Kolwot's death, the people became remiss of the commands given to them at the creation. Puluga ceased to visit them and then without further warning sent a devastating flood. Only four people survived this flood: two men, Loralola and Poilola, and two women, Kalola and Rimalola. When they landed they found they had lost their fire and all living things had perished. Puluga then recreated the animals and plants but does not seem to have given any further instructions, nor did he return the fire to the survivors. They suffered grievously. At this critical moment, one of their recently-drowned friends reappeared in the form of a kingfisher. He noticed their distress and flew up to the sky where he found Puluga seated beside his fire. He sized a burning log and tried to fly to earth with it. The kingfisher-spirit dropped the log on Puluga who suffered burns and angrily hurled the log at the bird. It missed its mark and instead fell near the four survivors people who thus had their problem solved for them. The legend at this point adds that since that time until the present day, the Andamanese tribes have never been without fire, thanks to the precautions they employ to guard against its extinction. The survivors received no such help with the other skills of daily life which they had to recover by themselves. The pigments for body-painting were said to have been rediscovered accidentally by women searching for edible roots.

* * *

Note the following historical elements in this myth:
1. Creation of a single couple: man first
2. Close communion with God, later lost
3. Physiological change from the original human prototype
4. Long Lifespans and rapid population growth
5. Global dispersion accompanied by language change
6. Cataclysmic flood


Now, another interesting element in this myth has no direct counterpart in recorded history, but it is shared by other myths across the globe: Fire from Heaven. Distinct to this myth is the admission that the use of fire had been lost earlier. Fire is the most basic technology that distinguishes Man from Beast. All men make use of nurtured fire; no animals do.

Getting closer to Apocalpse 13:7

A blog that recently made front-page news in USA Today is the subject of a defamation lawsuit, claiming, among other things, that the blogger, Frank Vance, defamed both Tim Dick and Ligonier Ministries inc. by stating, "It would be one thing if Tim Dick were qualified for the position . . . it's self-evident that the man is as unfit to head Ligonier Ministries as is RC Sproul Jr to be a pastor."

Thus a civil judge is being asked to adjudicate the qualification of the litigant for Christian leadership--something we hope the judge has refused to do.

But such is not the case in a similar legal battle being waged out on a rocky peninsula on the Aegean where the one hundred monks of the Esphigmenou Monastery are being actively persecuted by the Greek government over an issue of who is fit to lead the Eastern Orthodox Church. Four monks have already died, and the rest are being starved into submission--or death.

It has been centuries since a secular European state was asked to penalize members of a church whose heirarchy had accused of heresy. The Inquisition, long thought to be dead in the West, has now reared its head in the East.

The monks' crime? They oppose the support of their Ecumenical Patriarch--a Turkish citizen--for unification with the Catholic Church and submission to the Pope.

Their leader, Methodios, wrote to his fellow abbotts:
"Keep in mind, what is now apparent, the official Union of the Churches, because the European Union is being rushed to complete a Unified Europe. "

Sign of the times?