Cult leader Johnny Robertson: In his own words

Longtime readers of this blog already know about cultist Johnny Robertson and his self-proclaimed "Church of Christ" (which is nothing like the mainstream Churches of Christ that most people know and respect). About how Robertson, flunky/second cousin James Oldfield and their "Religious Review" charade go around the area accosting the decent (and in my mind, legitimate) churches,...

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Scientists claim: Tycho Brahe was murdered!

Tycho Brahe was one of the most accomplished astronomers in history. He was also quite the eccentric: for most of his life he wore a metal nose to replace the real one that he lost in a duel, he kept a dwarf human as something of a pet, and supposedly he died in 1601 from straining his bladder. The story goes that Tycho was at a party, had too much wine to drink and thought...

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The final scene from LOST episode "The Lie"

I've watched both "Because You Left" and "The Lie" twice more since Lost had its season premiere this past Wednesday night. But the very last scene from "The Lie" has so intrigued me that I've lost count how many times I've played through it again. Guess it's such a gothic, mysterious scene that in its own way touches on Lost's themes of religion and science.So here it is if you also can't get enough of it: Ms. Hawking working in the basement of...

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Kay Yow, beloved women's basketball coach, has passed away

The sad news just broke in the past short while that Kay Yow, the longtime women's basketball coach at North Carolina State University - and considered by many to have been one of the greatest women's coaches the game has ever seen - has passed away at the age of 66 following a long battle with cancer.Yow had been head coach at N.C. State since 1975, following stints as a...

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"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

President Obama plans to uphold the power that George W. Bush asserted in regards to spying on Americans without a warrant.So much for not sacrificing our ideals for safety that Obama kept talking about this past week after he got sworn into office.I hate to say "I told you so" but... many people, including myself, were screaming as loud as we could during the past several years that the horrible precedents that Bush was setting, would likely come...

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The Apple Macintosh is 25 years old today

It was twenty-five years ago today that the Macintosh from Apple went on sale to the public.In honor of the occasion, here is the classic commercial (directed by Ridley Scott) that ran during the Super Bowl two days before the product launched...

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Monty Python has 23,000% increase in DVD sales during past two months...

...and it's being attributed to the official Monty Python channel on YouTube and all the free videos on it.This was a sales gimmick from the very beginning (see my post from November when Monty Python launched the channel) and, apparently (LOL!) it has been an earth-shattering success! Monty Python is now sitting pretty in the #2 slot on Amazon.com for TV and movies, and as Mashable notes that's likely because of all of the links embedded in the...

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Shiny new blogger posts brilliant take on software piracy

Hot out of the gate and fresh into the blogosphere comes Matthew Federico, a fellow North Carolinian and I think that after just a few posts, his blog is promising some good things. Like this essay he just posted about video game piracy, and he covers all the bases rather eloquently...Stealing is bad. Stealing is something you just don't do. You don't go into a candy store and just steal that Hersey's Kiss. You don't take what is yours, and you...

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Cover of this February's issue of MAD Magazine

You gotta hand it to MAD Magazine: though its quality has declined over the past decade or so because of advertisements and the transition to color (but then again the MAD staff will probably be the first to argue that the magazine never had much quality anyway) it's still gets props for proving that it's willing to skewer anybody. Take a gander at the cover of the February...

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Celine Dion is smiling at my family

My sister Anita got something like second-row seats for the Celine Dion concert last night, and she snapped a bunch of pics of the beloved diva looking and smiling straight at where she and her friends were sitting. Darn! If I had known Anita was plotting this, I'da cajoled my way into going with her, 'cuz I'm a big fan of Dion! Then again, if I had gone last night I would...

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Fast reaction to LOST Season 5 premiere

HOLY $%&@!!!This show has come completely off the chain!That was season finale-quality material.Good safety tip we learned tonight: never, ever put knives in the automatic dishwasher with the blade pointing up. Unless, you know, you need them like that to kill intruders.How convenient that Ben has a lady on his side who owns a butcher shop with a nice, big refrigerator :-PAnyone else think the part where Hurley broke down and started pouring...

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BulletFlight for iPod touch is a killer app... literally!

This has gotta be one of the most innovative and clever uses for the iPod touch that I've ever seen...The BulletFlight application software, available through the iTunes store, turns the iPod touch into a full-blown ballistics computer that helps hunters in the field plot their firing solution. Users can tap in the ammunition type, wind speed and conditions, and distance...

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LOST: Season 5 of television's best drama begins tonight

The penultimate season of Lost, regarded by many as the finest drama that the television medium has ever produced, begins tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC. The network has devoted the entire three hours of prime time to Lost, the bulk of which will be the two-hour season premiere, "Because You Left".The finale of Season 4 left Lost fans with rattled senses. We saw how the Oceanic...

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If you pray against Obama, consider Matthew 22...

I reported last April about the seething rage that a lot of "conservative Christians" were already venting against Barack Obama. And speaking of which, over the past few days I've heard even more thoughtless fury out of Ron Baity's WPIP... but there's gonna be more about stuff like that coming in the next few days, so I'll hold my piece 'til then. Well unfortunately, my guess then that this rancor would "get worse"... is rapidly coming to pass...

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Awright, a bit of Inauguration Day humor...

A friend suggested this tonight, and lo and behold someone already made a YouTube video of the idea...Congratulations, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, your lovely daughters, and Vice-President Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden. This is your day. And I think I speak for most of us when I say, our prayers are with you and we ask that the Lord will give you the wisdom and diligence that you will need in the days, months and years a...

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All that needs to be said about today

OzymandiasI met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look...

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The time-traveling physics of BACK TO THE FUTURE

The staff of Overthinking It has been celebrating an entire week devoted to the Back to the Future trilogy, of which among the highlights is this exhaustive look at the science and physics of how time travel works in the movie series. There's stuff so dense in this article, that even I can barely comprehend it (then again, I've always sucked at more complex math... and there's...

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