Hayek vs. Keynes Economic Rap

Very funny. Here.

The Simpsons on Graduate School

Very funny. Here.

Hmm. What would I tell potential grad students? First, unless you so love your area that you don't care whether you have a job when you graduate or not, then pay attention to supply and demand. Your love for a subject area is not a reason for a university to give you a job.

Secondly, can you produce new knowledge? Grad school (well, at least doctoral study) is not about studying something really hard. It's about knowing an area well enough that you can make original contributions to the field. I have seen very smart people fail in grad school because they are not intellectually creative. Creativity is a personal quality that is distinct from intelligence. The older I get the more I recognize the critical importance of scientific or scholarly creativity for successful scholarship.

Luther's Small Catechism in Graphic-Novel Form

You gotta love this. I immediately ordered one for Jack.

My Favorite Political Argument in Film

Here.

CD of Lutheran Chant

This is really great recording of Lutheran chant. It's a recording of the Daily Prayers (Matins, Vespers, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline) from the Lutheran Service Book. It costs only $9.99 and can be ordered here. For a sample you can download the Matins te Deum here (although I'm not fond of the organ accompaniment -- but most of the chanting on the recording is a capella).

As I mentioned, the music and text for all of these services is in the Lutheran Service Book. This is the "hymn book" for Lutherans, but more. It includes the Psalter, as well as liturgical settings for the Divine Service, for the Daily Prayers, and services for special occasions. Also included in the recording it the Litany. But the music for the Litany is in the Altar Book and not in the LSB.

A Couple of Facts about the LCMS

The Lutheran Witness published something of a fact sheet on the LCMS in the January issue. One is that average weekly attendance is 155.2. The other is the average annual communicant contribution is $744.55. Multiplying those two figures means that the budget for the "average" LCMS church is a little over $115,000 per year.

Relief for Haiti

Here are two trusted organizations that are providing relief for Haiti. LCMS World Relief, and Food for the Poor.

Blogging while in Flight

Well, my last refuge from the office is disappearing. One reason I haven't minded flying as much as I do is that it gets me away from all of the electronic demands of the office. But today as I was getting on the plane, I noticed that it was one of American's new WiFi ready planes. So I'm blogging while in flight.

I probably won't get connected everytime I fly, but it was sort of nice not to have the opportunity before -- a great excuse to get away from e-mail for a while.

Ah, well.

Funny Math Joke - Spinal Tap's "These Go to Eleven"

The joke here is confusing an ordinal measure for a cardinal measure. It's very funny. I use it at the beginning of my methods classes to motivate the difference between a cardinal and an ordinal measure (not that students confuse them all that often).

One more thing about "Avatar"

One more thing about "Avatar": An ex-Marine corporal like Jake Sully would know that you don't make a frontal assault against machine guns if your forces are on horseback (even if they are alien horses) and have only bows and arrows. Even my son knew that the Na'vi at least should have attempted to flank the company's forces rather than attack them headon.