(Ir)religiosity

Blogging pioneer and missional leader Andrew Jones (The Tall Skinny Kiwi) is interviewed by five other bloggers from the GodBlogCon conference on the “emergent” (for lack of a better, less elusive term) blogosphere, live streaming, and other forms of new media.  It’s available for download and streaming here. [Ht. Steve Knight]

This piece from Lorelle on WordPress just made my blogging experience much easier.  If you use Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension it’s simple: just install the user script, restart FireFox and you’re good to go.  Now you can use the “preview” link at the bottom of each feed to comment on blogs, articles, etc without opening up another tab.  Wonderful!

George Orwell will become a blogger in about ten days.  According to this article in the Telegraph, Orwell’s diaries will be published online exactly 70 years after they were written: “Running until 1942 the diaries cover the start of the Second World War as well as Orwell’s own travels to Morocco following the illness and injuries he sustained while fighting in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War.”  You can find the blog here.  Should be pretty cool.

Every once in a while I check my site statistics to see what search keywords people are using to find my site. Sometimes it gets pretty interesting. This time around I didn’t get anything to out of the ordinary. Here’s a sample:

Pretty normal I guess. I was kind of disappointed I didn’t find anything to outrageous.

That got me to thinking about site stats. What services do you use to keep track of your site’s traffic? I use SiteMeter and StatCounter. I’ve tried to setup up Google Analytics a few times, but haven’t had much luck on WordPress. I’ve heard good things though.

Here’s an even better question: what’s the most outrageous keyword term someone has used to find your site?

See below for realtime updates (CST):

5:45 PM CST: Still a few hours until the polls close, but it’s already starting.  Clinton has all but explicitly conceded what has been over for at least a month and a half earlier today when she said that she would be open to being Obama’s VP.  The Associated Press has already declared that Obama has clinched the nomination.  The delegate countdown is literally changing by the minute as the superdelegates have been rolling out like nobody’s business all day.  As it stands now, according to Chuck Todd on MSNBC, Barack Obama is only 10 11 delegates away from officially clinching the nomination. 

6:22 PM CST: About 2 hours before the first polls close in South Dakota.  Three hours until Montana.  It looks like former President Carter will endorse Obama tonight.  And John McCain plays to acknowledge Obama as his November opponent tonight in New Orleans while trying to distance himself from Bush. 

6:59 PM CST: A leaked excerpt of McCain’s speech is on the Drudge Report and the full leaked transcript of Obama’s victory speech is on The News Wire.

7:03 PM CST: Oklahoma superdelegate goes Obama.  9 until nomination.

7:27 PM CST: McCain to speak at 7:30 CST, Obama at 9:00 CST, Clinton somewhere in between, MSNBC reports.

7:28 PM CST: Word from the Clinton camp: she will not officially concede tonight, thus the strategic placement of her speech between McCain and Obama.  

7:31 PM CST: Quote from leaked Obama speech: “I will be the Democratic nominee.”

7:34 PM CST: How crazy is this? Word from the pundits on MSNBC, “Obama will offer Clinton the VP slot under the stipulation that she not accept it.” I don’t really get the point of the charade and lip service in the name of healing the party.  I don’t think we’re that dumb.

7:39 PM CST: McCain has begun speaking to supporters in New Orleans. “The general election campaign has begun.”

7:40 PM CST: McCain: “Senator Obama will be my opponent and he will be a formidable one.”

7:46 PM CST: McCain: “I’m surprised that a young man (Obama) has bought into so many failed policies ideas.”

7:47 PM CST: McCain: “The American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they’re just getting to know Sen. Obama.”

7:53 PM CST: Is it really that hard to read from a tele-prompter?

7:57 PM CST: I am happy that McCain is in favor of alternative energy and climate change mitigation.  That’s something to look forward to either way.

7:59 PM CST: Apparently repeating “That’s not change we can believe in” enough times in a dry, monotonous voice is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

8:02 PM CST: The polls have just closed in South Dakota, networks interrupt McCain’s yawner to project that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party. 

8:10 PM CST: Numbers from SD: 11% reporting, Clinton leads 56% to 44%.  Obama will get at least 6 delegates with those numbers, thus the projections from the networks (CNN, NBC).  No official word from the campaign yet.

8:13 PM CST: Word from the Clinton camp in NY: “There is a real sense of finality in this gym in Manhattan.”

8:14 PM CST: McCain thinks he’s an agent of change now too.  He used the word 32 times (according to Tim Russert) in his speech before was interrupted by the networks!

8:20 PM CST: From the Obama camp: “Sen Clinton is a very formidable opponent. This is a hugely gratifying evening for us.”

8:24 PM CST: Sen. Clinton wins the South Dakota primary NBC projects.  She will address supporters in NY any minute.

8:31 PM CST: Sen. Clinton steps to the mic in NYC.  The big question: will she concede?

8:34 PM CST: NPR: What does Obama v. McCain look like?

8:35 PM CST: WTF?

8:36 PM CST: Clinton: “I want to start tonight by congratulating Senator Obama and his supporters on the extraordinary race they have run.”

8:39 PM CST: Clinton: “We won the swing states necessary to receive 270 electoral votes.” Supporters chant: “Yes, she will.” Too bad this doesn’t matter.

8:41 PM CST: Clinton: “I felt that each of your votes was a prayer for our nation…I’m so glad we stayed the course together. “

8:50 PM CST: Clinton: “I will be making no decisions tonight.” Dammit! Come on! Just say it!

8:54 PM CST: She basically conceding, but is to proud to say it (yet) and apparently she wants everyone to go to her website and leave her a message.  Are we in 2nd grade? 

8:55 PM CST: And I’m sorry, but ending every speech with “..and God bless America” makes me throw up in my mouth a little.  That goes for everyone.

8:57 PM CST: Montana polls closes in a few minutes.  Interesting venue choice on Clinton’s part.  Not monitors, no cell service.  Almost as if they didn’t want people to know everything that happened…you know…in reality.

9:00 PM CST: No real numbers in, but NBC projects Obama the winner in Montana. 

9:06 PM CST: Obama to speak soon to supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota, the site of the Republican convention.

9:08 PM CST: Obama is making his way to the stage.

9:09 PM CST: Obama is trying to start his speech.

9:13 PM CST: Just realized that this might end with enough time for me to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

9:15 PM CST: Obama: “The primary season is finally over…because of you I can stand here and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States of America.”

9:17 PM CST: Obama: “Our party but forth the most qualified, talented field of persons to ever run for this office.”

9:20 PM CST: Obama: “Our party and our country are better off because of Hillary Clinton.”

9:22 PM CST: Obama: “You can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she [Clinton] will be central to that victory”

9:24 PM CST: Obama: “I respect his [McCain] many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine.” Nice.

9:26 PM CST: Obama: “There are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.” 

9:27 PM CST: Obama: “Change is realizing that meeting today’s threats requires not just our firepower, but the power of our diplomacy.” What? No automatic deference to the myth of redemptive violence?

9:32 PM CST: This is getting really good. I mean, really good. Obama: “The chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American.” Supporters chanting: “YES! WE! CAN!”

9:34 PM CST: Obama: “The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don’t deserve is another election that’s governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon — that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first.”

9:35 PM CST: Obama: “Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.”

9:36 PM CST: Obama supporter in the crowd: Si, se puede!”

9:37 PM CST: Obama: “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.”

9:41 PM CST: This last paragraph of Obama’s speech: “The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when…we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.” Wow. I think I’ll end it with that.  On to november. Yes. We. Can.

9:48 PM CST: Ok, last one. Seriously. I couldn’t resist. Tom Brokaw: “He [Obama] has now moved from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Here’s how.’”

Check here for realtime updates (in central standard time) as the results come in

06:01 PM CST: The polls in Indiana just closed. 30 minutes until the close in NC. Predictions across the board and early reporting precincts show Clinton up on Obama by a sizable margin. I suspect he’ll close that margin quite a bit. I’d really like to see this thing ended tonight. The only way I see that happening is if Obama sweeps the board by a pretty good margin in which case Clinton would likely throw in the towel. But I doubt that happens. I think Clinton will hold Indiana by 5 or less and Obama will claim North Carolina by about 5 maybe a little more.

06:30 PM CST: Polls just closed in NC and all networks are projecting Obama the winner. With 17% reporting in IN, Clinton is up on Obama 57-43.

06:35 PM CST: Karl Rove is on Fox News. I tried to watch for a few minutes just for fun, but I can’t bear it.

06:43 PM CST: There’s really nothing new with the exit polls, mostly the same stuff as in the past except that it appears Jeremiah Wright affected voters in both states thought we don’t know if that means people liked Obama’s response or disliked what was said. Indiana exit polls here, North Carolina exit polls here.

06:49 PM CST: Numbers in NC show Obama way ahead by over 30%.

07:00 PM CST: One hour after the polls closed in Indiana and with 34% reporting Clinton is still up on Obama 57-43. Obama still the “decisive” victor in NC though there are no hard numbers in yet. The headline at the Huffington Post: “Obama Routs Clinton in North Carolina…Presumptive Nominee?”

07:01 PM CST: Indiana has officially moved from being “too close to call” to “too early to call.”

07:08 PM CST: New numbers in from Indiana: Clinton 56, Obama 44 with 38% reporting.

07:10 PM CST: Hard numbers from NC: Obama 65, Clinton 34 with 5% reporting.

07:25 PM CST: According to Huffington, CBS has called Indiana for Clinton.

07:28 PM CST: Word from the Obama campaign via MSNBC: “The die is cast. May 20 is our D-day.”

07:30 PM CST: New numbers from Indiana: Clinton up by 10 (55-445) with 50% reporting.

07:39 PM CST: Numbers update. Indiana: Clinton 54, Obama 46, 52% reporting. North Carolina: Obama 63, Clinton 35, 15% reporting.

07:46 PM CST: Interesting exit polls in Indiana. Rush Limbaugh has been badgering Republicans all week to get and screw things up by voting for Clinton. The numbers are interesting. 11% of voters in Indiana were Republican and they virtually split the vote between Clinton and Obama, 52-48, while denoting the will vote Republican in the fall. However, of those voting Republicans the overwhelming majority believe Obama is more likely to beat McCain in the November.

08:01 PM CST: The numbers in Indiana are beginning to shift in Obama’s favor somewhat. With 67% reporting Clinton leads 53-47. Obama is preparing to speak to supporters in North Carolina.

08:09 PM CST: Numbers update. Indiana: Clinton 53, Obama 47, with 68% reporting. North Carolina: Obama 59, Clinton 39 with 28% reporting.

08:11 PM CST: Obama is on stage. Should be speaking shortly.

08:12 PM CST: Obama stepping to the microphone, saying the usual 50+ “Thank you’s.”

08:15 PM CST: Obama: “[We have a] victory in a “big state,” a swing state. And we stand less than 200 delegates away….”

08:19 PM CST: Obama: “When this primary season is over we will have to remember who we are…this fall we intend to march forward together, united.”

08:23 PM CST: Ok, I understand why they use personal stories of people they’ve met on the campaign trail. But seriously, after a while it just gets old. I really don’t think people enjoy being used.

08:30 PM CST: Obama: “We will end [the old politics] by telling the truth.”

08:36 PM CST: Obama just ended his speech. The gap in Indiana is closing even more here are the new numbers: with 73% reporting Clinton leads Obama 52-48. We’ve now moved back from “too early to call” to “too close to call.”

08:47 PM CST: Numbers update. North Carolina: Obama 56, Clinton 42 with 57% reporting. Indiana: Clinton 52, Obama 48 with 76% reporting.

09:03 PM CST: The numbers haven’t changed much word has it late precincts won’t be in for another hour. As it stands now in Indiana Clinton holds on to the 4 percent margin at 52-48 over Obama with 81% reporting. In NC Clinton has cut Obama’s lead a little, but not much to do anything the numbers are Obama 56, Clinton 42 with 66% reporting. Clinton is expecting to speak soon. I probably won’t cover it that much. Flipping back and forth to SVU.

09:21 PM CST: It looks like Lake County, IN is key at this point. It is expected to be Obama territory, but they have said the well not be releasing any results until maybe as late as 11:00 CST. The numbers stand the same percentage wise (52-48 Clinton), but Obama is slowly closing the gap.

09:28 PM CST: The numbers by percent in IN: Clinton 52%, Obama 48% with 85% of precincts reporting. Actual votes: Clinton, 546,204, Obama 503,274.

09:31 PM CST: Clinton is being introduced and is preparing to speak. What can she say at this point.

09:48 PM CST: Clinton is still speaking. Plugging her website for donations. AP: Clinton Lost Last Chance for Upset. The margin in the numbers in IN remains the same. Still waiting to hear from Lake County.

10:03 PM CST: Clinton just finished speaking and used the same sort of uniting language that Obama did. Hard numbers update. North Carolina: looks like this one is pretty much final with 91% reporting Obama over Clinton 56-42. Indiana: with 86% reporting Clinton holds on to the lead 52-48, actual votes are Clinton: 560,720, Obama: 521,415. Still waiting for Lake County and a few other Obama strongholds at the top of next hour. That should seal it off.

10:21 PM CST: Still waiting. Margins remain virtually the same. Should know more in about 40-45 minutes . Word has it around 11,000 absentee ballots in the northern counties are being counted. This is good for Obama as he tends to fair better with early deciders.

10:40 PM CST: Waiting, waiting, waiting. According to NBC there are about 220,000 outstanding ballots, most in Obama favored counties. This is about to get really interesting.

10:46 PM CST: The margin is narrowing. With 91% reporting in Indiana, Obama barely trails Clinton, 49-51.

11:03 PM CST: Top of the hour. Indiana still “too close to call.” Clinton is up by 2% and Obama is still closing the gap.

11:16 PM CST: Deadlocked again at 51-49 Clinton’s favor with 92% reporting. The margin is now less than 20,000 votes.

11:37 PM CST: Wow. It is getting really close. With 95% of the vote in Clinton leads by around 16,600 votes (51% to Obama’s 49%). The remained 5% is almost exclusively Lake county. Tim Russert on MSNBC: “We now know who the nominee is.

11:43 PM CST: Just in: Clinton has canceled her morning news show appearances reports the Huffington Post.

12:02 AM CST: Clinton as canceled her entire public schedule save a fundraiser tomorrow in Washington. She is barely holding on to the lead in Indiana. With 95% reporting she has a lead of less than 1.39% or 16,500 votes. We may see this into tomorrow morning.

12:11 AM CST: Ok, with 99% of the vote in Clinton is declared the “apparent winner” of Indiana with 51% of the vote to Obama’s 49% with a difference of about 22,000 votes.

12:17 AM CST: Final numbers for the night. North Carolina: with 99% reporting Obama wins 56-42.  Indiana: with 99% reporting at this point in time Clinton narrowly wins 51-49.  The actual delegate count is yet to be determined though I predict Obama will net around 13-15 effectively erasing Clinton’s Pennsylvania gain.  I think we can now use the words Barack Obama and presumptive nominee in the same sentence.  The question now is how much longer will Hillary allow this to go on?

I’m in Fayetteville, Arkansas for the “Caring for Creation” conference. I’m pretty excited. Unfortunately, web presence for this event is pretty minimal. You can see more information here (it should be the first event listed) including links to PDF files of the workshops and plenary speakers, etc.

I don’t know what the internet situation will be like over there, hopefully they will have wifi. If they do, I will be live-blogging here throughout the weekend providing you with live updates on the workshop and the plenaries. If they don’t have internet access I’ll be live updating my twitter, via my cell phone, which you can see at my twitter site, at my facebook, or in the left-hand sidebar down there somewhere.

Obviously that won’t be as ideal or as comprehensive as an actual liveblog, but I’ll do what I can. All updates will be in central standard time. Don’t forget to spring forward this weekend! Reflections on the entire weekend will follow on Monday.

REAL-TIME UPDATES:

3:57 pm: Got here several hours ago. Had lunch and did some hiking. Now I’m waiting for dinner. May see if I can catch some z’s. The good news is there is wifi, at least in my room. Not sure about the rest of the campus. So I’ll be updating here and hopefully throughout the sessions. If not here then via twitter. The bad news is tonight’s plenary speaker, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth, had to cancel because of weather and flight delays. So, I’m not sure what’s going to go down tonight. More to come.

9:05 pm: So, there is no internet in the conference area. Kind of frustrating. Updates won’t really be “real” time. The first plenary was pretty good, a nice intro. to the weekend. So far I’m very impressed, most conferences I go to talk about sustainability and then use styrofoam cups and have expensive food catered, but here they gave us mugs to use for the entire week. I’ve never been to a conference that actually puts their message into action.

11:31 pm: The best part about these events are the conversations that take place and the relationships that are built/nurtured. That alone is better than any plenary speaker.

Day 2:

10:19 am: Just finished my first workshop on determining your eco-footprint. Wow. Mine was lower that the national average (which I guess doesn’t say a whole lot), but not as low as I’d like it to be. The overarching issue here is consumption. Global climate change is the symptom of that deeper problem. Next plenary at 10:30 by the my professor.

2:47 pm: The plenary session this morning was great. Dr. Davies talked about systemic solutions for sustainability and the Oikos movement. My second workshop was about political advocacy and was good, although I still remain a little cynical about the influence of advocates being usurped by the lobbyists. It seems like our government is turning into a system by the lobbyists for the lobbyists.

4:07 pm: Second afternoon workshop, “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle,” was pretty mediocre. It was exclusively about recycling and basically amounted to the facilitator telling her success story and assuming we should all do the same thing. Great if you want to hear an inspirational story, but not very practical. Got some free time now, until dinner. Think I may try and catch a nap.

12:17 am: Again, conversation trumps all. I’m grateful for that. The third plenary was perhaps the best thus far given by John Hill of Board of Church and Society of the UMC on global climate change. It’s hard not to be depressed when faced with the facts and projections, but I am hope nonetheless. And inspired. It’s late and we spring forward tonight, I’m out.

Day 3: 

10:07 am: Worship was great. Anytime you incorporate readings from Zen Buddhism and Albert Einstein into the service it automatically goes up a few notches in my book.  Not that I’ll likely be able to take it home, but it was really good nonetheless.

~bh ><>