Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

This Image Makes Me Want To Throw Up

I can’t believe it, but Planned Parenthood is marketing shirts that say “I had an abortion.”

Are they NUTS???

Are they so wrapped up in their warped, anti-life rhetoric that they can’t see how HORRENDOUS this idea is?

Putting this message on a T-shirt creates at minimum a defiant message and possibly a boastful one.

I can only conclude that PP has gone downhill since the days when Faye Wattleton was president of it. I remember her admitting that women know that there is a life within them and that it is a sad thing to end it. That kind of fuzzy “compassionate abortion” rhetoric contained enough acknowledgement of the truth to be dangerous. People might fall for it.

But THIS! This is simply beyond belief. It is up there in the same league as their inflammatory “Choice On Earth” campaign last Christmas.

If anybody is stupid enough to wear these things, Planned Parenthood will only be hurting its own cause.

That, of course, is a good thing. I just don’t want to see women destroy their own reputations by broadcasting such hate-filled, pride-filled messages to those around them.

"Nature's Special Creatures"

You’ve probably seen pictures of two-headed or two-tailed snakes, lizards, and other reptiles before.

Such creatures are always curios. One reader, knowing my interest in science, sent me this link, where you can view a number of interesting pictures of them.

The page title says “Nature’s Special Creatures,” but I think the URL of the page gives a more direct insight into what you’ll find there:

http://www.texasreptiles.com/freaks.html

“Nature’s Special Creatures”

You’ve probably seen pictures of two-headed or two-tailed snakes, lizards, and other reptiles before.

Such creatures are always curios. One reader, knowing my interest in science, sent me this link, where you can view a number of interesting pictures of them.

The page title says “Nature’s Special Creatures,” but I think the URL of the page gives a more direct insight into what you’ll find there:

http://www.texasreptiles.com/freaks.html

C.S.I., B.C.

You’ve no doubt seen those reconstructions in science documentaries and magazines of what ancient people looked like based on their bones. Until now, such reconstructions have missed a significant element of what you would have seen had you met the person in person–namely, what the person’s hair and skin color would have been.

Now that’s changing. A new gene-analysis technique allows researchers to determine what the hair and skin color of what many long-dead persons were.

Now if they could just use similar technique to determine the quesiton of the ages: what dinosaur skins looked like!

Short Stuff Today

I normally do my blog entries in advance of when they go up, and this weekend I was real busy–what with going to the San Diego Comic-Con and doing work for This Rock magazine.

As a result, my blog entries today (Monday) won’t be that long. Just recommended reading links.

Enjoy!

Episode III: We Have A Title

The third and last episode in the Star Wars saga now has a title: The Revenge of the Sith.

The title was announced today at the San Diego Comic-Con (which I was attending, though I didn’t go to the Star Wars presentation). It also appears on the official Star Wars website. Also announced was more DVD news.

The long fan guessing game about what title Lucas would go with is now over. The ensuing debate about whether it is a good title now begins.

For my money, this is a good title. Better than the title of Episode II (“Attack of the Clones”), and much better than the hopelessly obscure title of Episode I (“The Phantom Menace”).

The title for Episode III needed to have some reasonance with the title of Episode VI (“The Return of the Jedi”), which it does. The Episode III title also should hopefully do something to clarify the title of Episode VI, which is otherwise obscure. Does “the Jedi” mean an individual Jedi–Luke? Annakin?–or the Jedi as a class? (One friend a few years ago thought the Ep VI title should be parsed to simply mean “Luke’s Back!”). The new title clarifies matters. “The Revenge of the Sith” balances “The Return of the Jedi,” and so by symmetry, it makes “the Jedi” a class.

There are a few other titles I would have been happy with (“Birth of the Empire,” “Return of the Sith,” “Fall of the Republic”), but after the less-than-happymaking titles of Ep I and Ep II, I was concerned Lucas would come up with something smilarly unsatisfying.

Let’s hope the trilogy–and thus the series–ends with a film as strong as its title.

Here's A Thought . . .

babywalkingI was just thinking: You know how you are sometimes falling asleep–or are asleep–when your limbs suddenly jerk autonomically (by themselves)? At least, I experience that sometimes, and I assume that you do, too (if you’re attentive).

That limb jerk might have a purpose. Here’s what occurred to me:

When babies are in the womb, they often “kick,” though sometimes the kicks might actually be “punches.” In any event, they move their limbs in a jerky manner that causes their mothers some discomfort (while simultaneously providing delight to the mother, who can feel the child within her, and to others who place their hands on her stomach).

The reason that babies jerk their limbs in this way seems to be that they need to do it: It plays a useful role in their development. By moving their limbs around, the babies are ensuring that their joints work. Our joints–particularly at our shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees–are ball joints that could lock up if the bones grew in the wrong ways. Motion keeps the bones from growing in this way, and if the babies didn’t move in the womb then their bones might grow in ways that would cause their joints to lock up. But by moving them, they make sure that their joints remain fluid and flexible, so that when they emerge from the womb, they can move their arms and legs properly.

So here was my thought: Maybe the limb jerk that we experience when asleep or falling asleep is a survial of the prenatal limb jerk we all have. Maybe it’s a remnant of the reflex that causes our bones to grow right.

If any readers are doctors or others who have info on this, lemme know.

Here’s A Thought . . .

babywalkingI was just thinking: You know how you are sometimes falling asleep–or are asleep–when your limbs suddenly jerk autonomically (by themselves)? At least, I experience that sometimes, and I assume that you do, too (if you’re attentive).

That limb jerk might have a purpose. Here’s what occurred to me:

When babies are in the womb, they often “kick,” though sometimes the kicks might actually be “punches.” In any event, they move their limbs in a jerky manner that causes their mothers some discomfort (while simultaneously providing delight to the mother, who can feel the child within her, and to others who place their hands on her stomach).

The reason that babies jerk their limbs in this way seems to be that they need to do it: It plays a useful role in their development. By moving their limbs around, the babies are ensuring that their joints work. Our joints–particularly at our shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees–are ball joints that could lock up if the bones grew in the wrong ways. Motion keeps the bones from growing in this way, and if the babies didn’t move in the womb then their bones might grow in ways that would cause their joints to lock up. But by moving them, they make sure that their joints remain fluid and flexible, so that when they emerge from the womb, they can move their arms and legs properly.

So here was my thought: Maybe the limb jerk that we experience when asleep or falling asleep is a survial of the prenatal limb jerk we all have. Maybe it’s a remnant of the reflex that causes our bones to grow right.

If any readers are doctors or others who have info on this, lemme know.

Cat vs. Bunny: Bunny Wins!

tinycatgiantrabbitThis cat looks bigger than this bunny, right? Well, appearances can be deceiving. In fact, if you saw the bunny next to the cat in real life, it would be apparent that the bunny is much, MUCH larger than the cat.

In fact, the bunny is nine times larger than the cat!

The bunny is a two-year old Continental Giant rabbit from Holland that already weighs 27 pounds and may grow larger yet. It is believed to be the world’s largest bunny.

The cat, by contrast, is believed to be the world’s smallest cat. It is already full-grown and weighs only 3 pounds. The vets who own it say that they think it has a genetic defect. (Some might prefer to say it is “differently gened.”)

So, despite the fact that cats normally prey on bunnies, in this case the cat had better not let his predator instincts get the best of him. In the resulting dust-up, it would be Bambi Meets Godzilla.