America does not need a "religious rebirth". America and her people do need to experience genuine contrition before God. And the two are absolutely NOT the same.
Honor is good. But humility is far better.
sincerely,
Chris Knight
Katrina started out life on August 23rd, 2005 as a tropical system in the southeastern Bahamas. It did substantial damage and caused a number of deaths as it went across the Florida peninsula. And then Katrina entered the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico... where it became the monster that would ultimately cause the worst natural disaster in American history.
Five years later and Katrina is being debated as hotly as ever. I thought at the time that the situation became one of the worst clusterf-cks ever for government at all levels (and both major parties, mind ya).
But there were also quite a lot of stories about the positive aspects of human nature as well that came out of Katrina. The tale of Jabbar Gibson - the 20-year old who stole a schoolbus to evacuate fellow New Orleans residents to the Houston Astrodome - was one of my favorites. So too was the bar in the French Quarter that never closed. And then there was the photograph of Nita LaGarde, 105 years old and in a wheelchair, holding hands with Tanisha Blevin, the 5-year old granddaughter of her nurse. LaGarde and Blevin had spent two days trapped in the attic of a house as the flood waters rose before being rescued.
(I still think that the Interdictor blog is going to make for one helluva movie someday, with the right screenplay and director behind it.)
There is something dreadfully fascinating about hurricanes. And if you were reading The Knight Shift at the time you'll remember well how, ummm... nuts I went in writing about Katrina.
Let us hope and pray that another such opportunity will be a long, long time in returning.
That is absolutely insanely AWESOME!! And if you want more, GeekTyrant has this and another version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scene from Ghostbusters recreated in LEGO.
The title pretty much says it all: Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll who allegedly died in 1977, was witnessed at the Sheetz in Eden just a few short hours ago.
Sightings of Elvis are not unheard of in Rockingham County but this is the first time in more than a decade and a half that Elvis has been verified as being in the area. Previously Elvis had been riding around in a white stretch limo, including one visit to a convenience store in Ridgeway, Virginia in 1993 that was authenticated by the News & Record out of Greensboro.
If anyone else spots Elvis in the vicinity, send your report to theknightshift@gmail.com. 'Course it goes without saying that photos will be especially welcome!
All of them are coming in through the "front door" (the blog's main URL at theknightshift.blogspot.com), not at any one particular post. And it's not just been legal firms in North Carolina. If anything visits from law firms in my own home state are being vastly outnumbered by visits from across the country: places like Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Washington state, Texas, Alaska...
I am totally clueless as to what is going on that is leading so many lawyers to visit this site.
Dunno if this means that my activities as a blogger will be propelling me to a lawyer's office but at this point, after going through that twice already, I'm starting to get used to it :-P
So his physician took some x-rays of Chojecki's head... and found a bullet nestled between his skin and his skull.
It had been there for five years. At the time Chojecki, now 35, thought that he had either bumped his head or been hit by a firecracker during a New Years celebration. But apparently the 22-caliber bullet came from a bullet that had been fired during the same festivities (note to self: stop firing guns at parties).
Read more about the heady case of Robert Chojecki here, including video depicting the x-rays and the bullet!
Welcome to the future.
Toshiba is set to be the first manufacturer to roll out glasses-free 3D television, according to news site Breitbart citing a Japanese newspaper. The electronics and entertainment giant "has developed a new system that emits a number of rays of light with various angles from the screen so that viewers can see stereoscopic images without glasses". It's added that "People can enjoy images in three dimensions from various positions and suffer less stress."
If true, this will be the big breakthrough that leads to large-scale adoption of 3D television. The first of these sets are reported to be going on sale before Christmas and retailing for several thousands of dollars. Give it a few years' time and this kind of stuff will likely be more standard than not.
See? This blog just saved y'all several hundreds if not thousands of bucks!! :-)
Watching Season 6 at the moment. Am pleased to report that picture and sound quality is amazing. But the absolutely first thing that I had to watch was "The New Man in Charge": the 12 minutes-long "mini episode" that follows up on the events of the series finale. And in twelve minutes we get to see darn nearly and maybe all of the still-lingering questions get answered! Wondering about the food drops, the "Hurley-bird", Room 23 and Walt? Well those and many more matters get addressed to satisfaction.
If you're thinking about getting this set soon, you might wanna drop by your nearest friendly neighborhood big box store and get it this afternoon or evening: they were going fast at the nearest Best Buy (in fact mine was the last copy they had and the nice lady at the register said people had lined up outside the store this morning to buy the Complete Collection and the regular Season 6 set that also came out today). If you're anything at all a nut for Lost, this is definitely a must-have :-)
(And I learned yesterday that the Lost Season 6 soundtrack CD will be out next month! Followed in October by the 400-some pages Lost Encyclopedia.)
EDIT 7:35 p.m. EST: I just found the hidden disc. Yup, there is another disc in this set and you have to look for it: it's not anywhere that you can readily spot. And this is a huge box set. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be booby-trapped...
So I honestly haven't given the issue much thought until someone over the weekend - and a devout Christian, incidentally - remarked that he hadn't seen one rational argument as to why there shouldn't be a mosque built at that location.
After spending the past few days ruminating on it, I have to conclude... that my friend has observed accurately. And that there even might be more good reasons to allow the mosque to be constructed than raw emotion might have us believe.
My gray matter can tick off three of 'em quite readily...
1. It will be built on private property - As someone who believes that there is a fundamental right to do with property as one sees fit unless it interferes with the rights of others, I am obligated on principle to defend the right for those planning the project to build the so-called "mosque".
2. People have an absolute right to worship God as best as they understand Him - Regardless of whether or not I agree with how they worship God, I must respect the right of others to seek Him, in the good faith that their doing so is as sincere as I would appreciate their respecting my own seeking after Him to the best of my ability and understanding. Put simply: we each have the right to worship God in our own way... but that right ends where the right of others to enjoy the same begins.
3. It will demonstrate that Americans are SERIOUS about the freedom of religion - Some will no doubt claim that I've "gone liberal". I think it's more in line with what the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans (namely, Romans 12:20): that if one opposed to us is hungry or thirsty then provide for his needs, as this "will heap burning coals on his head". And if Islam is the intolerant ideology that some contend that it is, I can think of few things better to counter it than to prove without exception that we of the Judeo-Christian ethic dare to love all others... which includes those who might be lusting for our destruction.
So yeah. I don't see why the mosque shouldn't be built. As one who holds to the rights of the individual and as a follower of Christ, I can't see where others should be deprived of the liberties that I am also thankful to have.
'Course, if the mosque is built and it does wind up used for nefarious purpose, I also can't but believe that the mosque should be razed to the ground and the site desecrated with pig fat (along with the corpses of any adherents responsible for such acts of violence). Parse that as you will...
Here's a snippet...
As a rule, the greener the home, the uglier it will be. I went into the process thinking that green homes were ugly because hippies have bad taste. That turns out to be nothing but a coincidence. The problem is deeper. For example, the greenest sort of roof in a warm climate would be white to reflect the sun. If you want a beautiful home, a white roof won't get you there. Sure, you could put a lovely garden on your roof, because you heard someone did that. But don't try telling me a garden roof wouldn't be a maintenance nightmare. And where do you find the expert who knows how to do that sort of thing?There's plenty more at the link above. Or just click here if you're lazy. Hey, it's Monday morning...Second, the greenest sort of home would have few windows because windows bleed heat. In particular, if your lot has a view to the west, forget putting windows on that side because your family members will heat up like ants under a magnifying glass. Try telling your architect that you don't want a lot of windows on the view side. He'll quit.
Remember to skip the water-wasting lawn. White pebbles are the way to go if you want to save the Earth. I was born with almost no sense of style whatsoever, and even I hate looking at pebble lawns, although I do respect the choice.
There's a whole heap o' amateur astronomers and no doubt quite a few professionals as well who can say that Jack Horkheimer, with his exuberant style and enthusiastic love of astronomy, was one of the biggest reasons why they took up naked eye stargazing. Every week since 1976 we'd see Horkheimer sitting on one of Saturn's rings (gotta love cheapo chromakey done clever) as he effervescently described the heavenly spectacles for the coming week.
A very cool guy, who I am told was just as nice and energetic in real life as he was on his television shows. He will be missed.
Yes, there are pictures. And if y'all behave nice I might post them...
Kids watching Sesame Street these days are used to seeing Mr. Snuffleupagus mixing it up with his best friend Big Bird and all the other characters. But once upon a time the situation was very different. "Snuffy" was introduced to the show during Sesame Street's third season in 1971. He and Big Bird instantly became best friends. And Big Bird was eager to introduce Snuffy to all his other friends on Sesame Street, including the adults. Especially the adults!
But every time Big Bird hatched a plan that would introduce Snuffy to the grown-ups, something would always happen that would keep it from happening. Usually Snuffy would wind up splitting the scene right before the adults arrived. Other times, the adults would have their heads turned looking at something in the dire opposite direction of Snuffy, dashing Big Bird's plot once more.
This went on for... get this... FOURTEEN YEARS! It came to the point where hardly anybody believed Big Bird at all: to them, Snuffy was Big Bird's "imaginary friend".
But at long last, for Sesame Street's seventeenth season premiere on November 18th, 1985, Big Bird's scheme to reveal Snuffy to the world finally succeeded.
Reasons have varied for why Snuffy was outed. Many of the show's staff have said that by the mid-1980s there had been a lot of cases of child abuse and exploitation and the fear was that children wouldn't be believed if they had to tell their parents about "important things".
But it could also be argued that after fourteen years of "just barely missing" Snuffy, that Sesame Street's writers had completely run out of ways for the adults to keep from seeing him. Rather than stringing it out any longer, Sesame Street producers finally gave up and let Big Bird win his long battle for credibility.
I'd heard about this scene but until a few days ago had never actually witnessed it. This is... a HUGE thing for a guy like me, who did grow up watching Sesame Street and wondering if the adults would ever see Snuffy. My life is a little more complete now for getting to see this :-)
So without further ado, here is Big Bird - with a plan involving an early appearance by Elmo - revealing Mr. Snuffleupagus to the shocked and stunned adult cast of Sesame Street!
Why is Roger Clemens in trouble for lying to Congress... when Congress lies to us ALL the time and always gets away with it?
Anyhoo, since I'd committed to only playing through the Dark Knight's exploits during the evening hours, my nighttime gaming needed a new cerebral experience... and Limbo is it! And even though I haven't reached the end of the game, I absolutely must pass along word of it to this blog's readers. Why?
'Cuz Limbo is like Super Mario Bros. had it been envisioned by David Lynch! Yeah, imagine Mario from the same mind that brought us Eraserhead, and that will be Limbo. It's a side-scrolling platform game (something we don't see much of anymore), totally rendered in a Gothic black and white palette and with a bare minimum of background noise. The nameless protagonist - a silhouetted little boy - is bereft of any features save two points of light depicting his eyes. You control him as he sets off to find his lost sister.
And between he and his goal are some of the nastiest, most brutal deaths that I've EVER seen in a video game. So far I've watched our hero be drowned, impaled, decapitated, and numerous other grisly bad ends. The first time he stepped into a steel-jawed trap that took off his head, my mouth couldn't contain the prolonged scream of abject shock that came from my lungs. And Limbo contains many such moments...
Limbo is a testament to how an excellent game (or even a movie or television series) doesn't need a ridiculously exorbitant budget and high-end production values. All it takes is a little creativity and a daring imagination to pull off a memorable experience that will engage, entrance and enchant the player. Limbo is available for 1200 points on the Marketplace for Xbox Live Arcade. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
...But I couldn't resist posting and sharing this next item, because it is a positivalutely brilliant and exceptionally clever point.
A reader named Jessica e-mailed me the following thought this afternoon:
"Johnny Robertson makes salvation complicated for simple people. Jesus Christ makes salvation simple for complicated people."Very, very true.
And that's something that doesn't just pertain to, as one person put it, "Hypocrites On Parade". It applies to a lot of people.
It's something to think about for anyone who believes that we have to somehow "earn" or "merit" our salvation by being perfect in every way imaginable. When in truth, such a thing is simply not possible!
God isn't waiting for us to be "correct" in our spirituality, in our doctrine, or whatever. God is waiting for us to do nothing more than to desire Him and to cry out for His grace... because without that grace alone, we are lost.
We are taught from scripture that "Ask, seek, and ye shall find." That is a promise. To those who seek, however it is that they might be seeking, they will certainly find. Maybe not to our own satisfaction, but certainly to God's.
Who are any of us then to complicate the matter with our own expectations?
(These guys should bring their product to market here in the states. I bet they'd be a huge hit at pro-Second Amendment events!)
Hit the link above for more photos of these tasty trigger-happy treats.
Well anyway, it's a tough job market out there but if you happen to be Native American, a man and a practitioner of sacred healing, you're in luck! The Bureau of Prisons divison of the United States Department of Justice is hiring a "Native American Medicine Man" to work at the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, Minnesota.
Here's the official job description...
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Duluth, Duluth, MN, intends to make a single award to a responsible entity for providing the services of Native American Medicine man to the inmate population as outlined in the statement of work. The anticipated date of the award will be approximately October 1, 2010 subjected to funds availability for the next fiscal year. The duration of the contract will be from the date of award through 09/30/2011. The contractor shall perform all services at FPC Duluth, in the Religious Services Department, located at 6902 Airport Road, Duluth MN, 55814.Awright, I have to ask: is the Native American Medicine Man contractor allowed to conduct peyote rituals for his inmate congregants?The contractor will conduct Native American ceremonies and provide instruction to inmates in the Native American Faith.
General Topics for Contractors - Native American
1. Red Road
2. All My Relation
3. Medicine Wheel
4. The Sacred Pipe
5. Sweat Lodge
6. Elders
7. Circle of Life
8. Traditions/Rituals
9. Prayers
10. Ceremonies
11. Fasting
12. Smudging
13. The Drum
14. Grandfather/Grandmother
15. Dances
16. The Medicine Pouch
17. Offerings
18. Decision-making
19. Ritual Objects
20. Eagle
21. Eagle Feathers
22. Nature Lessons
23. Family Relations
24. Parenting
25. Learning
26. Healthy Relationships
27. Culture
28. Healing Traditions
29. Herbal Medicines
30. Understanding Self
31. Respect
32. Traditional Games
33. Traditional Foods
34. Seasons
35. Healing Self
36. A Grateful Heart
37. Cleansing Ceremonies
38. What is the role of faith and Community Re-entry?The contractor will supply all of their own religious garments and books. The contractor will control, supervise, and be responsible for all government materials and equipment and will ensure that such equipment and materials are used only for legitimate program purposes.
The contractor will provide 4 sessions per year. The sessions will either be on Thursdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (Pipe ceremony) or on Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (sweat ceremony). The day and time of these services is subject to change with agreement of the religious services department and the contractor. A session will consist of 4 hours to include entry and exit.
The contractor will adhere to all regulations prescribed by FPC Duluth for the safety, custody, and conduct of inmates. All contract personnel providing services within the confines of the FPC shall have a complete investigation conducted in accordance with BOP Program Statement 3000.02, "Personnel Manual". Any contract personnel who enter the FPC on a regular basis shall be required to attend a four-hour institution orientation program prior to assuming his or her responsibilities under the contract. A "refresher" orientation must be completed annually. The CM (Contract Monitor) will be responsible for scheduling training for contract personnel.
I'm 1/16th Cherokee Indian. And I'm a guy. Maybe I should drive up to Minnesota and apply for this :-P
I don't know what faith President Barack Obama professes to belong to. And in all honesty... it's not really my business to be concerned with it anyway. He could be Christian. He could be Muslim. He could be Hindu. He could be a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all I care. As has been said before on this blog and I'll state it again: I believe that every person has the right to seek God as best he or she can understand Him, so long as it's understood that this right ends where the right of others to have the same begins. Barack Obama certainly enjoys that right as well.
I merely expect Obama to be President and uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, as he swore an oath to do. More than a year and a half into his term, Obama ain't shown yet that he's up to the job.
"It is better to be governed by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian," Martin Luther is said to have observed. Unfortunately for the United States we've suffered nothing but foolish people - irrespective of creed - for twenty years at least! And it doesn't look like our prospects for wise leadership are going to improve any time soon...
Here's Niall's report...
As a regular browser of your blog, I was surprised to see you make an appearance on Australian television earlier tonight!I just can't believe that nearly FOUR years later, that my first campaign commercial for Board of Education is still making waves! That wasn't something that I saw happening at all :-)A regular part-humorous, part-analytical & highly popular program on our national broadcaster (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC) is normally called the "Gruen Transfer", and unveils and discusses the techniques behind commercial advertising. However, we are in the final throes of a federal election, for which the "Gruen Transfer" has become the "Gruen Nation", with a series of specials focusing on the techniques of political advertising in particular. Tonight they showed your infamous Star Wars ad, although in the comments afterwards they unfortunately didn't raise the copyright issue that you fought and won.
Niall says that it's Gruen Nation Series 1 Episode 4 and that you can watch it here at ABC1's website for the next 14 days. Unfortunately I won't get to see myself on Australian TV 'cuz the site only lets you watch streaming vids if you're in, of all places, Australia! Gonna see if I can find a copy floating around the Internets to download via torrent or whatever.
Thanks for the heads-up Niall. And to all of y'all visiting The Knight Shift from Australia today: welcome! Hope y'all like what you find here :-)
EDIT 4:25 p.m. EST: Good friend Brian Fesperman reports that you can watch the show stateside! Click here to check it out and you won't have to wait long 'cuz it's the very first spot they run. They ran the entire commercial... including all of Melody Hallman Daniel's dramatically awesome voiceover!
And after seeing it at last I am chuckling too much for one's own good. Especially giggling at host Wil Anderson's line about "I really wish his favorite movie had been Boogie Nights!" and saying that Kevin Rudd "would have been more convincing if you'd been holding a lightsaber!" You can also download the whole show in MP4 or WMV format for later viewing.
What more can be said? I'm thoroughly delighted that I got to be a small part of Oz's political landscape this season... and that my ad brought some good-hearted laughter to Down Under from Rockingham County, North Carolina :-)
(I mean, you can't get much hardcore than using a velociraptor for a garbage disposal...)
Two day ago and 3,578 miles later...
...Heang arrived at Folly Beach, South Carolina!
Here's Heang's account of reaching the finish line for his amazing journey.
Congratulations Heang! You were always uber-kewl in my book, and this accomplishment puts me in awe of you even more bro :-)
Well today, like a bolt out of the blue, Ken Levine - the guy who created BioShock in the first place (but didn't work on the sequel) - and his Irrational Games announced that BioShock Infinite will be landing in 2012.
Here's the trailer. And I have to ask: "What. The. %@&#?!?"
HOW does the BioShock saga go from being set in Rapture, a city on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 1968, to a city floating at 30,000 feet... in 1912?!?
"Okay Chris, take deep breaths. Remember: Ken Levine is back at the helm of a BioShock game. Trust him."
I am completely wog-boggled by the direction that BioShock is taking. And at the same time, more intrigued by an upcoming video game than I can remember being in quite awhile.
Well anyway, in my post I wondered aloud if there might be any earthquake activity that would happen as a result, 'cuz I've noticing for the past few years that whenever this planet gets hit by particles from a solar flare that it seems to agitate the inner workins enough to cause pretty good rumblin' soon afterward.
I wrote that last Monday, August 2nd. Today, August 12th, there have been two earthquakes reported in the past several hours. A 6.0 quake hitting the island nation of Vanuatu and then a short while ago a 6.9 quake striking just over a hundred miles away from Quito in Ecuador. No reports of injuries from either earthquake.
Not adding any further commentary. Just wanted to pass along the information for anyone interested in such things.
There is, however, a great many perspectives of Christ, Who is too magnificent for any one person or group of people to fully comprehend.
As it should be.
Who is another or others then, to tell me - or anyone else for that matter - that my perspective of Christ, as one of His followers, is the wrong one?
Thank you ladies. You have contributed some much-needed loveliness to this site :-)
Techdirt has more about this legally ridiculous situation, including the full text of the filed lawsuit.
(How soon will it be before we start seeing companies like Viacom using this sort of tactic against YouTube users? Can't help but wonder about that. 'Course, I of all people have more than enough reason to wonder...)
And with Inception still going strong at the box office, plenty of people might still be trying to figure out its labyrinthine structure. Cinema Blend has put together a great illustrated guide to the five levels of Inception's plot. And an artist calling himself "dehas" has come through with an Escher-esque "Inception Infographic" that has already become widely popular as a reference guide to the movie. Check 'em out... but do beware of spoilers if you ain't seen the movie yet.
(Same goes for that Back to the Future chart... but if you haven't seen those movies yet, what the heck is wrong with you?!?)
And then photos like this of a grocery store in Washington D.C., taken in 1941, show us otherwise...
Between 1939 and 1943 the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information made some of the only known full-color photographs of small-town life during the Great Depression and early years of World War II. These became part of a Library of Congress exhibit in 2006 called Bound for Glory: America in Color. And now the Denver Post has made them available online. Some of the photographs are curiously sweet. Others are especially haunting. And each of them brings to stark crisp life a forgotten facet of the way we used to be, once upon a time...
And whoever among our legislators were so irresponsible in voting for this, should have the word "STOOPID" branded into their foreheads so that the rest of humanity will know to steer clear of them forevermore amen.
Call it "The Law With No Name" (sounds like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington directed by Sergio Leone). Nancy Pelosi has brought the House of Representatives back into session for an emergency vote on a bill that, well nobody has any idea what the hell is in this thing. And the Senators who approved it didn't even bother to give it a proper name. It's officially listed as "The ______Act of___".
And if you ask me, this bill is a ________ pile of bull____.
Click on over to Slashdot to read more about this... thing.
(Obviously, the question arises as to whether this bill was read aloud in the Senate... or if it was even read at all.)
About 3:30 a.m. this morning a possible solution was hit upon. Doesn't look like it's the re-invention of Wheeler foam. Not yet anyway. I can't help but think it's too much like that and at the same time it's more than a tad different.
I'll probably be pondering it at length throughout the rest of the day. Particularly as I am reclining in the chair at my friendly neighborhood dentist's office later this morning.
For now though, my beef with gravity and electromagnetism is satisfied. Until I no doubt wind up chucking the theory out because of one tiny little incongruency that will certainly invalidate the whole thing...
(Why can't I have a normal mind like everyone else?)
A full decade later and I still get fits of anger just thinking about the crap I found in those hundreds of pages of monetary monstrosity that I picked through line by agonizing line.
(A space shuttle launch complex for North Carolina? Really? And how much money did we spend trying to put that here when there's already a good working one in Florida?)
Even if it's a long drive and a fair swim away from the Tarheel State, what fellow journalist/blogger and friend of The Knight Shift Danny de Garcia II forwarded to me this evening about his home state of Hawaii brought back those memories of wrath and disillusionment from a decade ago. Danny and colleague Kyle Shiroma just went public with the findings of their investigation: Hawaii has $1.4 BILLION sitting unspent in its coffers... even while many of its elected officials insist upon higher taxation!
From the report at Grassroot Institue of Hawaii...
Hawaii’s taxpayers might be shocked to discover that while numerous voices in and out of the local political establishment are calling for an increase in the General Excise Tax to cover any future budget shortfalls in education or other state services, upwards of $1.4 billion dollars in unspent excess funds may be sitting in special funds, several of which were tagged by the auditor almost a decade ago for repeal.If this kind of financial mis-sight is going on in a state like Hawaii then... is it too far to assume that much the same - if not worse - is going on in other states as well?According to the Department of Budget and Finance’s “Reports on Non-General Fund Information: Fiscal Years 2006-2012,” some 186 special funds spread across twenty different departments hold an estimated $1,412,357,203 in unspent revenues over and above their operational requirements. In plain language, if the estimates provided by the Department are correct, the state has more than just pocket change stuck in its seats.
Until recently, few members of the public were aware of how many special funds existed, what their purpose was or how much money the State of Hawaii was holding in these accounts. For this reason, Grassroot Institute analysts decided to review the Department’s worksheets and itemize all the special funds to see just what they contained.
The Department of Transportation is reported as having $582,449,161 in unspent special funds (41% of the state’s excess balances), Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has some $327,412,159 unspent (23%) and the University of Hawaii holds another $119,225,732 (8%) making them the top holders of excess revenues.
The worksheets show figures such as $6,968,895 unspent in the Works of Art Special Fund (AGS 881) for public aesthetics and art education – a fund which was advised by the Auditor to be repealed in 2001 and its balances lapsed into the General Fund – and on the opposite end of the spectrum, zero balances in the Agricultural Park Special Fund Escrow Account (AGR 141HA) which also continues to exist despite a recommendation for repeal.
Why should taxpayers approve an increase of taxes to balance the budget when the state’s own reports show over $1.4 billion in excess sitting in their accounts collecting interest? If these excess balances were divided equally among the population, there would be checks of close to $1,100 going to every man, woman and child in Hawaii.
This kind of thing might... emphasis on might... entice me to give North Carolina's budget the hairy eyeball again for the first time since 2000. Provided that I have at the ready a glass of whiskey, a gun and two bullets. Just in case.
Hat tip to Chad Austin for the great find!
About time somebody made a fan film about Lando Calrissian going up against the man!
Those were the words of my grandmother, twenty-five years ago this evening. And when those words were the most semblance of comfort that an eleven-year old kid had to grasp - even if he didn't really understand what it meant at the time - on what was at the time the absolute worst day of his life...
...well, they kinda stick with ya, even a quarter century later.
Heck, I can even still remember what I was wearing that day, what Granny was wearing, the most miserable dinner of pizza that I would ever have, all of the vehicles like neighbors' cars and the ambulance and the deputy sheriff cruisers that descended on our farm that afternoon. I can even tell you what show that I watched on television that night, trying and failing to lose myself, to stop thinking about it all...
...but most of all, I remember crying. Being inside the house with my sister and our two dachshund puppies, watching from the windows. I still remember calling my life-long best friend Chad, telling him about what happened: now I realize that I was desperate for a voice to talk to. And I couldn't stop crying. Harder than I ever had before until that day.
It was the ambulance arriving that first made me panic. The lady who took care of my other grandmother in the house across the road, she came to our front door. The first words that came out of me were "Did something happen to Dad?!"
No, Dad was okay.
But Mike had been killed.
Mike Ashley: 19 years old. Brown haired, a little bit of a mustache. As upstanding and Christian of a young man as you were ever likely to meet. He knew Dad because Dad had been friends with his father. And early in the summer of 1985, Mike started working on our dairy farm as a hired hand.
Being able to say that I grew up and worked on a dairy farm: that is something that I am very proud of. And with each passing year I realize how much happiness there could be found in that. I couldn't do too much, being about ten when I started. But on occasion Dad did let me help a calve to be born. And I can honestly say that I have milked cows by hand (go watch that scene in Witness where Harrison Ford's character is up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows on that Amish farm... and then imagine your friend and humble blogger doing that :-).
It was the people that Dad hired to work on our farm that I remember most vividly. Maybe that had something to do with my outlook on human nature, 'cuz at a very early age I had come to know so many kinds of people. They were white. They were black. They were migrant laborers from Mexico (some of whom spoke not a word of English, but we all seemed to understand each other somehow). They were my cousin Craig and my Uncle John. Some of them were characters in their own right. Others were - in their own way - downright silly. All of them worked hard, sometimes for a season and then going back to whatever or wherever, sometimes coming back to work again.
Mike Ashley though...
He worked as hard as anyone. Always cheerful, always smiling and with a twinkle in his eye. He was looking to go into farming as well, so this was kinda like college for him.
He was with us on the farm for two months. And in that time, well...
...he became the closest thing to an older brother that I would ever have.
I fast came to look up to Mike. Maybe it was the noble qualities that he had: qualities that in retrospect, I decided that I wanted to have in my own life. He became a role model to me.
And the thing is, I was admittedly pretty offbeat even as a kid. Mike was the first "grownup" who I had any extended time with who was sincerely interested in the things that I was interested in. And that had a lot of appeal to me.
So a lot of times in the afternoon, after Dad and Mike and whoever else had lunch and Dad took his usual nap before the afternoon milking, Mike would want to see the books that I was into. He enjoyed reading my comic books. He really loved going through my stash of MAD Magazines. And he even thought that my Transformers toys were very cool.
That is the last, best memory that I have of Mike. He was in my room on the afternoon of August 6th, and I was showing him how to convert my army of Autobots and Decepticons into their respective cars, trucks, guns, cassette tapes, what have you. Mike was instantly hooked on them! Pretty soon he was transformin' 'em just as well as me or anybody.
That was the afternoon of August 6th, 1985. And that night I found myself thanking God for the friendship that I had with Mike.
It was the very next day that Mike died on our farm.
He had been on a tractor, scraping cow manure into a manure spreader. And if you don't know already cow manure is some of the best fertilizer imaginable. On a small farm it is a very valued and precious resource. And it was something that had been done like a zillion times.
It worked like this: the manure spreader was parked below the high end of a ramp. Whoever was on the tractor would tow a bladed attachment and scrape manure that had come out of the barn and cattle stalls, off the ramp and into the spreader.
That is what Mike was doing.
To this day we don't know what caused it to happen. Maybe he saw a deer off in the field and was momentarily distracted.
The tractor drove over the top of the ramp and flipped over. Mike was killed instantly.
It was Dad who found him a short while later. He saw smoke coming from behind the barn. And then he saw the overturned tractor with Mike pinned beneath it.
A short while later the emergency vehicles and lots of cars and trucks started arriving. Mom got the call at work and rushed home immediately. She dropped my sister and me off at her mother's that night.
That's when Granny remarked that "The good die young."
Twenty-five years later and I'm still trying to suss it all out. I'd still like to know why God took Mike away from us: so young. So upstanding. So good...
He would have been 44 now. He should have known what it was like to be a husband and a father, 'cuz there's no doubt in my mind that he would have been the best. He should have had all the opportunities that a person as sweet and virtuous as he was... well, I think good people deserve more, anyway!
It's enough to make me question my own life. I'm now 36. Still young (and like to think that I'll always have that childlike quality no matter how many years go by), but I've had many more years than Mike ever got. Almost by twice as much. I look at myself and I don't see a necessarily "good" person. I see a flawed, messed-up guy who... doesn't deserve anything at all.
So help me, I have told God more times than I can count how unfair it is. That He would take someone like Mike Ashley from us and leave me - a complete screw-up who fails too many times more than I've ever succeeded - still here.
(Yeah I'll go ahead and admit it, for the first time: I am now divorced. And there is more that I am feeling led to write about that and have been feeling it for some time, but for now God is making me wait on that. It's not something to be proud of but at the same time, I cannot but feel that God has used this period to grow and mature me and make me appreciate His grace more than I ever have before... but that's an essay for another time.)
My life has been one cluster-#&@% after another. Why couldn't God have taken me? Why, why did He take Mike instead? Why does He seem to always take the people who deserve to have long, full lives on this earth?
"The good die young."
That is the closest thing to an answer that I have ever had. Maybe more so now than I ever did then, I have to draw some comfort from them.
Because God's ways... really aren't our ways at all. We expect Him to hand out goodies to us, rarely stopping to understand that this world is still a fallen place and tragedy does come from it.
I might still question Him at times. But, I am no longer angry with Him. About anything that has happened in my life. At long last I can see, and be thankful, that in spite of ourselves God doesn't mess up. That from each thing, for those who do love Him and seek after Him, He will never cease to eternally labor for our benefit.
A quarter century later, and I am thankful to God more than ever before: that He put Mike Ashley into our lives, for however brief a span.
And now you know, dear reader, that once there was a man and his name was Mike Ashley. And that he was a good man. He was someone that I have long strived to honor (and often missing the mark) with my own life and my own actions. And if others had the honor of knowing Mike, he would have left them with just as wonderful an impression from his strength of character, his humbleness, and his enthusiasm.
He was taken from this earthly realm twenty-five years ago today. I still miss him. And I still love him as the older brother that I never had.
And I do rejoice that he was here... and that he will be waiting for us all someday.
Ain't It Cool News has more info, including the official press release heralding Badler's return to the V saga.
I'll admit that I've only seen a bit of ABC's V. It's shown some great potential, but thus far hasn't quite lived up to it. Here's hoping that the second season will have this series finally coming into its own. That Jane Badler is being brought back makes me cautiously optimistic.
But that's gonna be dashed to piece if the second season premiere (the first episode that Badler will appear in) doesn't have a scene like this one, from Part 1 of the original NBC miniseries V in 1983...
I was ten years old when I first saw that. And I still get wigged out just thinking about it.
The best thing on the tube this summer in this blogger's opinion is without a doubt The Pillars of the Earth, currently running on the Starz channels. Based on Ken Follett's bestselling 1989 novel and with production from Ridley Scott's company, The Pillars of the Earth is an eight-hour historical epic set during the Anarchy: the period between the sinking of the White Ship and the assassination of Thomas Becket in the England of the twelfth century. Amid the political and religious intrigues of the fight between Stephen and Matilda for the throne of England, the virtuous Prior Philip dreams of helping the people of his parish improve their lot. When Kingsbridge's original church burns to the ground, master mason Tom Builder presents Philip with plans for a majestic new cathedral. Set against their plot are Sir Percy Hamleigh and his wife Lady Regan (who is as cunning as she is hideous), their sadistic son William (who fears Hell above all else) and the wicked Bishop Waleran Bigod. These allies of King Stephen also must contend with Aliena and Richard: children of the Earl Bartholomew who seek to avenge the honor of their father and regain their title. And then there is Jack: the step-son of Tom Builder, who hides a secret history that is set to clash the secular and the spiritual against each other in an already tumultuous era.
Starring Ian McShane as Waleran, Donald Sutherland as Bartholomew, Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder, Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip, and with Eddie Redmayne in what should be a breakout role and contender for Emmy with his portrayal of Jack, The Pillars of the Earth is sumptuous in its acting, its production values and its attempt at storytelling in the television medium. The result is a work of art more of the caliber of Oscar-nominated film. It also single-handedly resurrects the miniseries - narcoleptic for far too long - as a potent narrative tool.
The first two hours aired two weeks ago and the second part was broadcast last week. Part 3 airs tonight on Starz, and throughout the next week. I've already got The Pillars of the Earth Blu-ray set pre-ordered. But don't wait for that: check it out now if you've got Starz, and prepare for a treat. Highly, highly recommended.
The downside is that top speed is sustainable only for a half-mile. And it takes 150 gallons of fuel to reach it. But that's gotta be a hella scary ride for any kiddies that might be aboard this beast. Stender and his crew used an actual school bus to build their creation but admit having to reinforce it quite a bit because "There's no way the original bus could have withstood the speeds that I take it to." Still, he estimates that about 5 percent, including the door, are original parts.
Why a 367-MPH school bus? The self-taught Stender quipped that "I grew up on a farm and to tell you the truth I always wanted to learn things myself and didn't like school much... I guess this is my revenge for all those days riding on the slow journey to school, now it goes at my kind of pace."
But there are other reasons as well. From the story at the Telegraph...
Mr Stender's creation, which he has dubbed 'The School Time Jet-Powered School Bus', also fires out 80 foot flames from the back creating massive clouds of smoke.Click on the above link for more, including video of the School Time Jet-Powered School Bus in seriously hot action!Mr Stender, 43, said: "I built the bus for two reasons. The first is to entertain people because, come on, it's a jet bus.
"The second, is to keep kids off drugs. Jets are hot, drugs are not...
"We do a lot of displays at schools and we are trying to show them there's more to life than sitting in front of computers.
The first is that a single member of the federal judiciary is empowered to render null and void the vote of more than 7 million voters in a matter pertaining to their own state of residence.
The other thing is that even as this is being cheered in some quarters as a "victory" for certain individuals, in truth it is a dire setback for all individuals. I speak of the now decades-long erosion of jury nullification: the tradition that common people empaneled on a jury can acquit defendants and even overturn legislation in spite of legal and prosecutorial weight, if sincere conscience should so dictate. And even though jury nullification is generally a matter strictly relegated to affairs at trial, its principle extends throughout the whole of the law of our democratically-elected republic.
Jury nullification is something that I have long appreciated. It is - and should always be - the citizenry's last, best bulwark for peaceable resistance against any and all agents of government overstepping the rightful bounds. The moment that government refuses to honor this, then it begins to be questioned whether government is obligated to acknowledge and respect the rights of the people... or whether the people are obligated to acknowledge the government in kind.
The people of California voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8, and whether the rest of us agree with it or not we should respect the people of California to manage their own affairs as a state.
And one judge, sitting on the federal bench and regardless of agenda, should never be enabled with the power to negate the legislative will of citizens in good conscience. For that way, lies tyranny.
If you thought that was a honkin' big coincidence, wait'll you get a load of this 'un...
Those same sharp lads at GeekTyrant have scored another find. The whole plot of Inception is eerily similar to Dream of a Lifetime: a 2004 Disney-published comic book about... Scrooge McDuck!
Here's a page from the comic. Click on it to drastically embiggenize...
According to the guys at GeekTyrant, Dream of a Lifetime "... tells the story of how the Beagle Boys used a device to enter Scrooge McDuck's dreams to extract the secret combination to Scrooge McDuck's vault! I dead freakin' serious! Did Nolan get his idea from a Uncle Scrooge comic book!?"
Mash down here for the link to GeekTyrant's page, which has a link to where you can read the comic in full.
Yah, that's a great find. However the more I think about it, the more examples of this same "invading a person's dreams" thing I'm able to think back upon. There was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series involving Mad Hatter that was kinda like this. And I even remember one of the episodes of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero years ago that had Cobra's Dr. Mindbender messin' with the Joes' dreams (one of the Joes, I think it was Low-Light, turned the tables on Cobra 'cuz he didn't sleep normally, or something...). However nothing that comes to mind bears anything as close a resemblance to how dream-stealing worked in Inception than does this Scrooge McDuck comic.
Now all we need for the world to be perfect is to wait for Muppet Inception.
Less than a year after that however, the Darth Plagueis book was cancelled by Lucasfilm! The official reason given was that it was "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..."
Four years later and the time is apparently ripe to at last reveal the history of this enigmatic Sith Lord. I shall certainly be looking forward to it :-)
From the story at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution...
A man who robbed a Wendy's at gunpoint Saturday night apparently was so upset with his haul that he twice called the restaurant to complain, Atlanta police said.I've worked in fast food before, and nearly six hundred bucks is quite a lot for one register drawer. How much more was this guy expecting?"Next time there better be more than $586," he said during one call. He made "a similar threat" in the second call, police said.
About 11:15 p.m., a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun walked up to the drive-through window at the Wendy's at 1940 Piedmont Road, police said. He told an employee to put the cash drawer on the counter.
After grabbing the drawer and running away, the robber discarded the drawer in the bushes at the nearby InTown Suites. Police dusted the drawer for fingerprints. However, the robber was seen wearing yellow gloves at Wendy's.
Here's some of Fred's musings on the matter...
Two ways exist of looking at Wikileaks, the site that publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys.Plenty more at the above link. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a Fred Reed essay, I've been told that it's quite like the literary equivalent to drinking several shots of Jack Daniels. Not that I personally know what that is like, mind ya...Implicit in the Foxian view is a vague idea that the leaks give away important—well, stuff. You know, maybe frequencies of something or other, or locations of ambushes or, well, things. Important things. The Taliban will use this information to kill American soldiers. The notion is vague, as are those who hold it, but emotionally potent.
The other view, held usually by people who have some experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. Wikileaks doesn’t endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by wars.
Which is obvious if you look at what the military (the president, remember, is commander-in-chief) actually does. Remember the military’s frantic efforts to suppress the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, photos of prisoners lying in pools of blood while grinning girl soldiers play with them? These had zero tactical importance. They did however threaten to arouse the Pentagon’s worst enemy.
The American public.
Slashdot is spreading the news this afternoon about a massive ejection of high-energy particles from the the sun. It's headed toward Earth and should reach us sometime tomorrow. Among other things it means that we should be enjoying some lovely aurora, if you're fortunate to live at a high-enough latitude.
Awright well, here's the thing: I've noticed in the past several years that most every time we get hit by a solar flare, that there's usually a massive earthquake that happens not very long afterward.
Considering that the inside of the Earth is a molten piezoelectric dynamo that generates this planet's magnetic field and that the plates of the planet's crust are floating on top of it, it doesn't seem that coincidental a correlation. I mean, if every now and then the sun ejects some highly electromagnetic particles toward us, seems only fitting that there'd be some agitation of the works beneath us.
So... will an earthquake be occurring in the near future? More than one, perhaps?
I decided awhile back that the next time there was a report of this kind of solar weather that I'd make a note of it on this blog, just to see if anything happens. And whether or not it does well, guess this'll be my own lil' contribution to the body of observable data on geological activity :-)
Tonight I'm sitting in Reidsville... but my heart is at Fort A.P. Hill.
Here's bidding a hearty "hello" to all 45,000 or so of my friends who are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in style this week :-)
And should I play the original StarCraft first? Believe it or not, for all of the original's legendary renown, I've yet to play it.
(I'm way behind on my video games. I still need to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum sometime. Not to mention Halo 3: ODST.)
Anyway, StarCraft II looks incredibly promising. Just wondering if it's worth dropping sixty bucks for it, or if I should wait :-)
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- George Lucas's Edutopia magazine
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