Best Bob Hope movie line (TIMELY!!!!!!)

A fountain is a fountain, they look and sound nice. Yet this one is exciting!

Record fish caught on toy rod

A man in the US has managed to catch and land a record-breaking catfish on a Barbie fishing rod just 2-and-a-half feet long.

David Hayes holds his record-breaking catfish alongside his three-year-old granddaughter Alyssa /PA pics

David Hayes and his 3-year-old granddaughter Alyssa were angling in the pond behind his Wilkes County home when she asked him to hold her rod while she nipped to the loo.

"They hadn't no more than closed the door than the cat hit the cricket and took off," Mr Hayes told the Hickory Daily Record.

"He turned the water over and I saw his tail was about as wide as my two hands."

Alyssa returned to find her grandad battling with the monster fish.

"She said, 'Papa, you're going to break my rod,' because it was bent double," said Mr Hayes.

After 25 minutes, the pink plastic toy prevailed and Mr Hayes landed the 21 lbs,1oz catfish on the 6 lbs test line.

At 32 inches long, it was 2 inches longer than the rod.

A state fisheries biologist from North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has certified the record, which was nearly three pounds over the previous mark.

From "The Deacon's Bench"

The first "Chinese" Olympic star
While the world watches in fascination the Olympics in Beijing, Asia News has taken a moment to remind us of the original Chinese champion, who gained fame more recently from the movie "Chariots of Fire."

Take a look:

Not everyone may know that the first "Chinese" athlete to win an Olympic medal was a Scotsman born in China. He was Eric Liddell, the son of Presbyterian missionaries, born in Tianjin in 1902. After his Olympic victory in 1924 in Paris - which inspired the film "Chariots of Fire" - Liddell (whose Chinese name is Li Airui) returned to China, where he worked as a Presbyterian missionary, until his death in a Japanese prison camp in 1945.

Liddell remained in China until the was five years old, then moved to Scotland, where he studied near Edinburg. He became a great athlete (cricket, rugby, and running), and participated in the Paris Olympics in 1924. But since the 100 meter race - in which he would have made his best time - was scheduled for a Sunday, he declined to participate, because of his strict and solid religious upbringing.

According to some witnesses, it seems that the king of England himself tried to convince him to compete, in the name of "national pride", but he declined because "the commandments of God come before national honor. I will not run on Sunday".

Liddell trained for the 400 meter race, which he won with a record time of 47.6 seconds, receiving the gold medal.

After his victory, he received a degree in science and returned to Tianjin as a teacher, first in the Anglo-Chinese school, and then in a school for the poor.

In 1941, when war was already underway between China and Japan, he sent his wife and daughters to Canada because of the danger, but remained in China himself to teach in Shaochang. In 1943, Shaochang was conquered by the Japanese, and Liddell was interned in a camp in Weifang, where he tried to help the elderly and sick, and taught children.

Eric Liddell died on February 21, 1945. A few months earlier, prime minister Winston Churchill obtained the liberation of some of the prisoners, and the famous athlete should have been one of them, but he gave up his place to a pregnant prisoner.

His last words were: "It's complete surrender".

Barack Obama stridently supports abortion

John McCain Opposes Abortion

News Report from Iraq.... with a smile

McCain Has "Insight"

“I looked into his eyes,” Mr. McCain said, “and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.”

Picture Perfect but Sadly Fake

Lin Miaoke who lip-synched at the opening ceremony over the voice of Yang Peiyi [right] who was considered unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth Photo: GETTY/AFP

Singing to the Puppies

First Day at Worship

Picture is called "First Day At Worship".
Painted by Maud Humphrey Bogart, the artist was the mother of Humphrey Bogart. She used to do illustrations with small children as the subject of each work. When he was a baby, little Humphrey served as a model. In fact it was his face that was used on a baby food label, not Gerber. The company he represented no longer exists.

Mountain Wedding Bliss

Stellar's Jay

Mountain Blue Bird

Anguish: A man cradles the body of a relative in the street after Russian planes bomb homes in Gori, killing five people

Gay Marriage

Old Homestead at Sunset - Soren Edsberg

Christ and Doubting Thomas - Carl Bloch

Sunset From Fisher Hill - Jean Gaitnby

Here's something I sent to my friend and former employer, David Berger, just after we moved here in 2003. He liked it and encouraged me to share it, so at last, here goes:

I told Paul about a word picture of California I came up with, illustrating life here. By design, it is best understood by a man:

"You are standing looking at a beautiful ocean scene that exceeds description. California comes into view, personified as a gorgeous breathtaking, statuesque blond, with a captivating, even seductive smile and an inviting physical presence. Moving forward toward this beauty, something soon becomes evident, impossible to detect from a distance. There is an odor. Oops, she smells bad, okay, you can deal with that, but then, as you get close enough to engage this stunner in conversation, she smiles and as she speaks you suddenly realize that she has a case of halitosis the likes of which you've never encountered. She smells like something died inside her mouth long ago. Not only that, but her smile, as gorgeous and appealing as it is, upon closer inspection is evidently made up of the only teeth in this babe's mouth. The teeth behind the front ones, are either missing or rotten and jagged. You look deep into those liquid blue eyes and suddenly realize this girl is the recipient of more than one face lift, and her body at present does not resemble the one God intended, having been surgically altered; in fact her hair is a wig..with synthetic hair. No one knows what is under the that wig except the wearer, and she knows only too well because she has spent the greater part of her life gazing lovingly into her mirror, but only under lighting that is as flattering as possible. She can't quite see you because you did not originate in her mirror and because in her vanity, she refuses her glasses and wears contacts that provide luminous blue color, but nothing else. You reach out to politely introduce yourself, to take her hand, but she can only reach over and shake her own. Her capacity to touch someone else in any meaningful way died a long time ago, when her "doctrine" became "The National Enquirer". She can engage in conversations only about her interests, or what she perceives her gurus (in superficial, egotistical ignorance) stridently think is permissible." The End

Have been ruminating on something for a week (or five years?) or so. The discovery that hit me like a wrecking ball? "Pantheism from the Pew".
Because all our members live in the forest, they share an assumption: "Our proximity to nature makes us closer to God - EVEN affords us an enhanced status with the creator...meaning we don't have as far to travel for revelation or enlightenment."
Blew me away when I finally realized that this is actually what I've been seeing all along, yet with much less clarity.
This little step-stool or "leg-up" toward righteousness and "spiritual insight" actually serves as a ceiling or wall of sorts, that blocks the view to the truth, the revelation of the mystery that is the true Gospel.
We aren't special folks, let's all get over ourselves. If we were automatically closer to God, MORE OF US in this community, WOULD BE IN CHURCH.
This also goes far in explaining why for many Christians here, environmentalism is sacrament. Even in our Lutheran pews.
We address it as it emerges.

"Gisele" - Elizabeth Shippen Green