news, insights and pics

I was invited to be a Bible Blogger. Weird. I got an email from a nice young man who asked if he could add me as a link. I was flattered. Then I read "under 'Illinois.'" There are so many they're divided up by state. Honored still, sure.

So I linked to them, 'cause I suspect that's probably what they're after anyway. I doubt this has as much to do with content as hit counts, but whatever. If you're really bored and looking for some Jesus blogs there's a link over in that side column.

That was the news. Here comes the insight:

It's not my insight ... well I guess it's my insight about someone else's insight. I finished a book at work today called MicroTrends by Mark J. Penn. Penn is a pollster who makes an amazing case for how the small, under-the-radar trends are the ones that really shape our society. The book basically goes through 75 of what he believes are the most important. It's interesting. Certainly not mind-blowing, but interesting.

The very last "micro-trend" he discusses is educated terrorists, which - contrary to many western assumptions - is most terrorists. Penn identifies a micro-trend as a group of people that make up 1% or more of the population, so terrorists don't actually qualify (they come in at .002). They have, however, proven that even a "nano-trend" can make an impact.

He discusses their culture, their behavior, their determination, and their possibilities (if al Quaeda could convince just 1% of Muslims in the world to join them, they would number over 10 million - a force larger than any national military in the world). At the end of the chapter, he makes this statement:

"The central terrorist movement of the twenty-first century, unlike communism, will not be defeated with washing machines. [long story] On top of the military and social efforts, it will take strong intellectual and religious cohesion - perhaps an interfaith movement dedicated to defining the true path to God that wins back as many converts intellectually as the military is able to find and destroy."

Did a secular author just prophecy? Are we so in the last days that a man removed from the Church and the word of God, who simply studies social trends, can plainly see that the best solution to wars and rumors of wars is a single world religion? Weird.

And I finally put up some pictures of the house. Not many of the inside, but you'll just have to be patient. You can see them here.