Exercise - the poor man's plastic surgery.

Three or four serious wildfires are burning in the eastern side of the state and a couple of small communities have been evacuated. The local NBC affiliate interviewed some of those evacuated and they said the same thing we heard from those affected by the recent tornados in the midwest.
"Houses and things can be replaced. The important thing is that we're all alive."
Isn't it interesting how crises clarify priorities?

But wouldn't it be fun to hear someone say, "Well, by the time we got the truck loaded we had room left for either the new flat screen or Grandma. It was a tough call but we're hopeful she'll be OK when we're allowed back in."

I finished that book, but not until this morning. I kept dozing off mid-screen last night.
Now that I'm done my thoughts have evened out some. Not in the sense that I've changed my reactions to the content and tone, but they've shifted a little. More settled. I read his first book, and combined with this one I *think* I see someone who has made his mark by being controversial and drawing outside the lines. Some people seem to need to or enjoy saying what they know will be controversial. I have to wonder if that's the case here.
His exegesis is atrocious. He ignores context, omitting the second half of verses when those words are central to the issue, literalizes (yeah, I know I just made up a word) parables and figuratizes (again) passages clearly meant literally, and plays fast and loose with the original languages. The Greek word "aion" means whatever he needs it to mean whenever it suits his purposes. Seriously, from the perspective of biblical scholarship his work is sloppy at best. And given his alma maters I have to wonder if it's intentionally negligent. He was taught better.
I may have missed something but I don't recall a single place in the book where he speaks charitably of the traditional (read: 2,000-year old) view of salvation and eternity and those who hold it. Dozens of times he speaks critically, even mockingly of those who hold that view.
You probably know the book; the press has certainly given it and him ample coverage. They like a good dust-up. And I think that makes another equally flawed book very likely.

I heard someone on NPR this afternoon say that if the debt ceiling isn't raised well ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline investors may question whether our country is a wise place for them to put their money.
Seriously? They think it is now? If I had money to invest and looked at a company that spent trillions more than it took in, repeatedly put together unreasonable budgets with no chance of balancing the books and had long term obligations guaranteed to be missed I wouldn't consider it a wise investment whether they raised their debt ceiling or not. I currently give our govt. my money because I have to, certainly not because I think they know how to manage it wisely.