Peter Leithart is now blogging at his new website, Leithart.com. I especially want to point out the articles page on his website where you will find a comprehensive list of articles that Peter Leithart has written.
Monthly Archive for February, 2004
Gary A. Mauser has published a study showing the effect that restrictive gun laws have had in Britain, Australia, and Canada. He says that ” . . . violent crime rates, and homicide rates in particular, have been falling in the United States. The drop in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world. In 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s. This contrast should provoke thinking people to wonder what happened in those countries where they introduced increasingly restrictive firearm laws.” The media is very good at ignoring these kinds of facts. The Failed Experiment, which gives the details of the study appears to be helpful in showing that the United States should not follow the lead of Britain, Australia, and Canada.
John Barach posted today on Gene Wolfe’s Storeys from the Old Hotel. I had tried to buy it before after seeing it mentioned at the Gene Wolfe fan page that references James Jordan’s interest in his works. Storeys from the Old Hotel is not available new from Amazon.com but I found it on BookCloseOuts.com for $3.49 (retail is $14.95). I was even more excited when I discovered that they currently have 14 titles by Gene Wolfe in stock at incredible prices. The also have 6 titles by Jack Vance who is an author I first saw linked to on Jeff Meyers’ blog. I ordered Storeys from the Old Hotel, Sword & Citadel, The Demon Princes: Volume 1, and The Demon Princes: Volume 2. I am excited about the good prices and hope that others will benefit from this too.
Dean Peters has updated the Scripturizer plugin. The update includes some basic bug fixes and some new features that are really nice.
For those unfamiliar with Scripturizer, it is a plugin for the Movable Type blogging system. When you include Bible references such as Romans 3:23 or Romans 1:16-32 the system will automatically convert them to links to the passage on either the Bible Gateway or ESV (for those who choose the ESV) website.
The plugin provides plenty of ways to recognize and link your reference. I will illustrate a few with text. Romans 3: 23 is a classic verse which sums Paul’s argument in Romans that all (both Jew and Gentile) are sinners. He starts this argument around Romans 1: 16 - 17 and extends it all the way through Romans 2 and then conludes with Romans 3. Some significant verses throughout this passage include Romans 1:16-17, 2:1&29, 3:10-20.
The parenthesis problem involved with spaces has also been fixed (John 3:16).
Update: Since I have updated to MT 3.1 I have not gotten scripturizer to work. That is the reason you don’t see anything linked as I state in the post.
The Scripturizer plugin for Movable Type is scheduled to be updated this weekend. I am looking forward to this and am excited about some of the new features. Rob Hulson has posted an excellent article explaining how to install the plugin in plain english (I wish I would have had this the first time). It looks like Dean Peters will add the ability to link to the ESV on it’s own site (the links on his site do that). I think that will be great.
My job is changing this year so that I will be dealing more with selling and supporting computers. My boss would like me to get my A+ Certification for various reasons. I am now reading the A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide. I find this kind of interesting that I am learning to support PCs which I don’t even like. I use a PC all day at work and a Mac at home for everything else. I would gladly use a Mac at work but my boss doesn’t like the idea. From my limited knowledge of PC support at the moment, it seems to me that a Mac would be a lot easier to support especially in hardware areas because there is a much more limited choice of configurations (than the hundreds of PC manufacturers).
If you are in the market for a new computer and aren’t sure what to get, go to Apple.com and get a Mac. It’s just better (and doesn’t have viruses).
The Washington Times has printed a letter to the editor, Bush and I were lieutenants, by one of the men who served with President Bush while he was in the Air National Guard. The article helps to clear up a lot of the misconceptions that are floating around in the media about Bush’s military service. Those on the extreme left will not let facts influence them, but this information will be helpful to others who are concerned.
There is also a second article at the Washington Times, Bush’s drills with the Alabama Guard confirmed, that gives more information from people who knew President Bush at the time.
