MarkDobie.com

McDonalds Monster

We love McDonalds and all the fun it brings.

Getting oil changed at Rydell Chevrolet in Waterloo

This was the first time I have taken my new Mitsubishi Outlander in for an oil change. Susan took it in to Rydell for the first oil change. Mitsubishi was kind enough to send me a free oil change coupon too! The "Quick Lube" service was great and fast. They didn't do a very good job vacuuming but they did gets most of the carpet clean. Since that's not the first priority I'll give them a pass. They also rotated the tires and did all of the 7500 mile checks I needed. The free snacks are a big bonus IMO and they also had free internet that we didn't use.

Going NUCLEAR!!!!!

House Republicans have drafted an energy plan that is as different as night and day from the President's energy plan. The focus would be on clean, non-polluting, limitless nuclear energy. Read the article here: House Republicans Draft Energy Bill With Heavy Focus on Nuclear Power - NY Times article

Black and White

Black and White from Matt Rittgers on Vimeo.

Here's a video that we made at Prairie Lakes Church as an opener to our message on "Race". We wanted to first highlight the differences between our head Pastor, John Fuller, and our Urban Outreach Director, Carl Carey, and then to show how they have a similar heart's desire and passion.

A Conspiracy of Euphemism

Jeffrey Goldberg article from the Atlantic

The eight a.m. NPR news update today included word of the fatal shooting of one soldier and the wounding of another outside an army recruiting station in Arkansas. The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have "religious motivations." She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.

Why the shyness? Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam. How is the public served by this kind of silence? The extremist Christian beliefs of George Tiller's alleged murderer are certainly relevant to that case, and no one in my profession is hesitant to discuss them. Why the hesitancy to talk about the motivations of the man who allegedly killed Pvt. William Long?