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Anglican Update

When I created the Anglican News category, I kind of just dived right in to it. If you have no idea what’s going on in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion and why I’m occasionally posting such dire news about the it, check out this post at the Wall Street Journal:

For a decade now, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) has been bitterly divided over the issue of ordaining openly gay clergy. The matter reached a new intensity this past week when the church’s triennial convention ended the ban on gay candidates serving in ordained ministry. After years of protesting ECUSA’s liberal policies and doctrines, seceding conservatives have now organized a rival church — the Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA — which claims 100,000 believers, compared with two million in ECUSA. This week’s dramatic decision is sure to widen the rift even further, causing what church historians might officially label a “schism.”

The presiding bishop of the mainstream Episcopal grouping, Katherine Jefferts Schori, predictably condemns ACNA, protesting that “schism is not a Christian act.” But it is not wholly clear who is seceding from whom. In approving gay bishops, ECUSA is defying the global Anglican Communion, which had begged Americans not to take a move that could provoke believers in other parts of the world. The Anglican Communion, though noticeably “progressive” in its American and British forms, is a world-wide church of 80 million. Indeed, the majority of Anglicans today live in African and Asian countries where progressive views are not so eagerly embraced. For American conservatives, it is Bishop Jefferts Schori’s church that has seceded from global Anglicanism.

Let me know if the article ends up behind a paywall – I have the complete text and can post it here.

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Cryptic Friday Fun

au_revoir_simone

Don’t tell me
It’s another likely story
Could’ve pinned it on you from the start
Well I’m new here
Doesn’t mean I have to answer
Silly questions or a shot in the dark

You know I’m a child
I keep this alive

It gets harder
I remember to remember
Waking up again all over again
If there’s an echo
Repeat days I’d likely let go
And be the changes we are noticing

When we’re running wild
We keep this alive

Still I wonder
Sights around us fade and underneath
The ground shakes, things fall apart
And no other than the voice of one another
Keeps us safely moving on in the dark

You know I’m a child
I keep this alive

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We Got Mail!

One of the best things about running a public website is dealing with comments from the general public. Any joker with a computer, Internet connection and a web browser can leave a comment on this site, and while 99% of the non-spam comments left on this site are constructive in some way… the other 1% are not. Check out this comment left by someone from at or near Sakharov Plaza in Washington DC about this post (the Baltimore Ravens asking the NFL not to schedule any prime time games against the Steelers this year):

another pittsburgh redneck who shows no sportsmanship…..yes the steelers won 3 games but they were the best 3 games played last year. Hard fought, very close, defensive games. Both teams played well. Instead of seeing that the games were great and that the rivalry is good for the game, you (redneck who never played sports) are acting like a typical jerk Red Sox fan who should be at home watching backyard wrestling on youtube. You don’t like sports, you like being a faggot.

Wow! Where do we even begin with this?

First of all, it just demonstrates what I’ve been saying all along about the bitterness of Bawlmer Ravens fans. These folks have giant chips on their shoulders, and sadly, it’s not delicious Utz Crab Chips. It’s a festering inferiority complex that someone – even Dr Phil – should address. Holding in all that rage just can’t be good for you.

It’s also a bit rich for a Baltimore Ravens fan to talk about “sportsmanship”. Aren’t the Ravens that same team accused of putting a “bounty” on Hines Ward last year? Oh wait – yes they are! And just admit it Ravens fans: the first thought in your little heads after you heard that Steve McNair had been shot had to be “Oh shit – where’s Ray Lewis?” The Bawlmer Ravens don’t even know where the “moral high ground” is, much less how to occupy it.

Continue reading “We Got Mail!”

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Finding the best torrent

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything about Bittorrent, mainly because I rarely use BT these days, as there are far too many direct download sites out there offering the same content for half the bandwidth and none of the fear of getting busted. But still, there is the occasional thing I can only download via a Bittorrent client, so I thought I’d offer a bit of advice as to which torrent file you should download from a website.

You see, if you use a torrent search engine like Mininova, it’s possible to get multiple hits for the same thing. If you’re searching for the latest episode of True Blood, for example, you could get hits from multiple trackers. So which one do you choose?

At first glance, you might think that choosing the one with the largest swarm (total number of seeders and leechers) is the best call. Unfortunately, this is incorrect. What you want is the torrent with the highest ratio of seeders to leechers. Because there are fewer leechers in this swarm, the seeders have more bandwidth to offer in this scenario than they do in one where there are thousands of people in the swarm.

Read more about it at TorrentFreak.

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CoE to recognize ACNA?

As always, from BabyBlue:

Kendall Harmon reports that the first motion for the Church of England to recognize the Anglican Church of North America has picked up six Church of England bishops and at 121 sponsors. According to the London Times, this will “guarantee it a place on the next Synod agenda in February”.

Interesting times. I doubt this will go anywhere, but you never know.

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COOL APP: Youtube Downloader HD

I normally hate recommending software like this, but…

Last week, I wanted to see a highlight reel of game 7 of this year’s Stanley Cup finals. I went to nhl.com and looked, but their video library is difficult (impossible?) to search. I then went to YouTube, thinking that someone might have uploaded their own copy. But lo and behold, the NHL has an official YouTube channel, and I was able to see the highlight reel in glorious 720p video!

I really wanted to keep a copy of the video, but there was a problem: most of the “download YouTube video” sites (like keepvid) allow you to save the FLV (standard quality) or MP4 (high quality) videos, but not the HD versions. I found a couple of bookmarklets that supposedly let you save the 720p versions, but I couldn’t get them to work.

Frustrated, I saw a link to some software called Youtube Downloader HD, which promised to download any version of the video available on the site. I downloaded and installed it… and it just works!

youtube downloader hd

All you’ve gotta do is a) select the version of the video you want, b) paste the video’s URL into the app, then c) click “Start”. It’s that simple, folks!

Youtube Downloader HD is for Windows systems only and is freeware. Snag it from this site.

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Field Trip to Murder Kroger

Atlanta peeps might enjoy this mildly amusing “review” of the Murder Kroger. If you don’t know what the “Murder Kroger” is, you won’t get the joke:

At the intersection of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Ponce de Leon Place is a grocery store that residents of Atlanta affectionately call Murder Kroger. To the best of my knowledge, the grocery store has never been the site of a murder.

Not nearly as fun as the Disco Kroger, no?

via Field Trip to Murder Kroger.