Hasta la vista, babyWhy can't the United States be this determined to stop the problem with illegal immigration that it has?Wed Mar 4, 1:20 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) – A Mexican national who told airport immigration he was visiting Britain to see a friend was swiftly deported after a search unearthed a good-luck card in his luggage wishing him well for his "new life in the UK."
UK Border Agency officers at Manchester Airport routinely stopped the 40-year-old chef after he arrived on a flight from Los Angeles last Friday.
The man told them he was on a short trip to see a friend who was opening a restaurant in the area.
"However, a search of the passenger's baggage revealed a huge collection of Mexican food recipes and a good-luck card from his church wishing him well for his 'new life in the UK,'" the agency said in a statement.
The man later admitted he had intended to work at the restaurant illegally and had planned to bring his family over from America if he liked it.
He was deported the next day.
"We will not tolerate people coming here to work illegally," the agency said. "People wanting to visit the UK must play by the rules. Those who do not are sent back."
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Would-be illegal immigrant ratted-out by "good luck" card
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Yah here's my thoughts on tonight's LOST: "LaFleur"
Now that takes brass ones.
Of all the episodes this season thus far, "LaFleur" was the one that I thought has come the most wild out of left field. Maybe even ranking up there with "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and "The Constant" as among the most unorthodox of Lost episodes. But oh so spot-on for this most exceptional of television series.
This was one of the best Sawyer-centric episodes yet. Seeing him in tonight's show, and then looking back on what kind of man Sawyer was in Season 1, there's a great sense of appreciation of how much he has grown and matured: from the vindictive con man, to a real nurturer and protector. But he hasn't forgotten how to pull a fast one when he has to. For some reason I thought Sawyer's best scene was when he was laying the smack down on Richard Alpert: it was like "I know who you are so don't mess with me."
Lots of good new DHARMA Initiative stuff ('specially good to see Horace again) and intriguing hints about the Hostiles. And hey, we finally got to see the rest of the Four-Toed Statue, if only for about three seconds. Granted it was only the back of it but hey, at least we know there really was more to it, aye?
The reunion at the end: we saw that coming, but it made it no less powerful. And so television's most-discussed love triangle has become... a quadrangle. Should be fun to see where this goes.
Not as tense or hurried as last week's "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham", but I thought "LaFleur" held its own very well. No new Lost next week, but we'll do this again on the 18th! :-)
FDIC may become insolvent (Uh-oh....)
Deep dark depression, excessive misery."
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - the government agency which makes sure that the money you keep in the bank will still be there if the firm goes bust - is running out of money for its fund and risks insolvency, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has told bank CEOs. A lot of banks have gone under in the past several months and its depleted the FDIC's coffers.
The FDIC is now looking to shore up the fund with new banking fees, and is projected to raise $27 billion.
Will that be enough at all to keep scenes from yesteryear like the one depicted above from happening again?
In my opinion: not likely.
Nuke your hometown (or any town for that matter)
So according to this gimmick, if a device on the scale of Tsar Bomba were to go off in the middle of downtown Reidsville, North Carolina, it would not only destroy all of Rockingham County, but it would also effectively sterilize an area stretching from Martinsville across the line in Virginia, to the outskirts of Thomasville south of Greensboro, and from Winston-Salem to the west and across I-40 to Mebane (yup, you're gone too Burlington).
Just... wow.
If you are going to see WATCHMEN at midnight tomorrow night...
A few people have already committed to what promises to be a very fun stunt to celebrate the release of this movie.
Don't worry: it's not going to be anything illegal. I don't think it should be anyway...
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Woman calls 911 three times about Chicken McNuggets
So Goodman called 911 and reported the "emergency". And not once, but three times. She's now due in court on a charge of misusing the 911 service.
If Goodman caused this much trouble over McNuggets, then thank Heaven she didn't go nuts after being told the McRib had gone away again.
Three years of study yields secrets of belly button lint
A biology teacher once told us that "scientists will study anything". After reading this story, I don't doubt it :-)
Bankrupt of principles, Republicans now turning on each other
I don't think the Republicans have been infiltrated by aliens just yet (as happens in another John Carpenter movie, They Live) but ever since this past weekend's annual Conservative Political Action Conference you would think that the party is divvying up and preparing to go at it with flamethrowers and fire axes. But I think that the "mainstream press" (now more worthless than ever) is missing the real story here. This power struggle among so-called "conservatives" is only happening because the Republicans are so utterly void of foundational principles, that it now stands revealed - and just as much as the Democrats - as being only concerned with the acquisition and maintaining of political power. For all the cooing of how "wonderful" Rush Limbaugh's speech was about getting Republicans back in control of the White House and Congress, nobody among these people are daring to ask themselves "Do we deserve to be in power?"
I propose that the Republicans/conservatives' failure to address this with the humility it deserves, cries out that they don't deserve any more power. They had eight years to do as they pleased, and they did absolutely nothing substantive with it. Why should we trust them with more opportunity and authority? How can we respect them when the only thing they accomplished the last time was radically increasing the size of government and wasting a countless amount of our money?
The sooner we accept this truth, the sooner this country can begin on the road to real recovery: neither of the two major political parties has America's best interest at heart. There is no faith to be had whatsoever in either the Democrats or the Republicans. Together, these two "factions" are driving this nation full-bore toward the cliff. I can't see how arguing about who's at the steering wheel is going to make any real difference.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Theatre Guild of Rockingham County unleashing MONSTER IN THE CLOSET this weekend!
This coming weekend the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's Childrens Theater will be presenting Monster in the Closet at Rockingham Community College's Advanced Technologies Building Auditorium.Directed by Tony Hummel, Monster in the Closet is the age-old story of that most primal of human fears: that deep within our closet there lurks some twisted fiend. Pity poor Emily then: it is not her imagination that there really is a monster abiding in the darkness, and her best friend saw it too. But beastie Murray has his own problems: he doesn't want to scare the kids. This lovable slacker merely longs to play Emily's new video game... no matter what his boss says.
Monster in the Closet plays this Friday, March 6th at 7:30 p.m., then on Saturday, March 7th at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 pm., and a final performance on Sunday, March 8th at 2:30 p.m. Visit the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's website for more information. I have heard from many people that this is going to be a very funny show, so come see it y'all can! :-)
Winter in the country
Snow, at last
So now all of those kids across this part of North Carolina who had been growing up only hearing about the mythical substance known as "snow", can get to experience it firsthand :-)
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Finished my first WARHAMMER 40,000 army
Anyhoo, here it is: my very first completed playable army for Warhammer 40,000. Behold the brave men of the Ultramarines chapter...
At the top left: 4 Space Marines in Terminator armor. At the top right are 9 Space Marines in standard armor. Between them is an Ultramarine Dreadnought (a crippled Space Marine throw into a "mini AT-AT"). At bottom left is the Terminator Sergeant, while a Space Marine Veteran Sergeant is at the bottom right and between them bearing the Ultramarines banner is the Space Marine Commander.
So, how'd they turn out? I'm taking 'em into battle for the first time this coming week! :-)
"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC IN 3-D released 25 years ago
Twenty-five years ago today "Weird Al" Yankovic In 3-D was released... and neither music or pop culture in general was ever the same again.True, this was the second album that "Weird Al" Yankovic came out with (following his self-titled debut record). But In 3-D was the one that blasted his career into high orbit and he hasn't come down yet. The first song of the album, "Eat It", was a culinary parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". The song itself is a mirthful marvel in its own right, but the "Eat It" music video is what grabbed everyone's attention: in 1984 and the height of the MTV revolution, nobody had seen a music video packed with so much humor! "Eat It" wound up winning a 1984 Grammy, for Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical. It would be just the first of many for Yankovic.
So to "Weird Al" and his band: congratulations on In 3-D reaching the quarter century milestone! :-)
J.J. Abrams hints at CLOVERFIELD sequel
During the Star Trek panel at WonderCon, Abrams spoke in considerably strong terms that a Cloverfield sequel is indeed in the works...
"We're actually working on an idea right now," Abrams told the packed crowd. "The key obviously at doing any kind of sequel, certainly this film included, is that it better not be a business decision. If you're going to do something, it should be because you're really inspired to do it. It doesn't really have to mean anything, doesn't mean it will work, but it means we did it because we cared, not because we thought we could get the bucks. We have an idea that we thought was pretty cool that we're playing with, which means there will be something that's connected to Cloverfield, but I hope it happens sooner than later because the idea is pretty sweet."The novelty of Cloverfield is such that the ideas for stories set during the same attack are virtually limitless. I'd love to see at least two or three more Cloverfield movies. And a good video game that lets the player experience the horror of that "terrible thing" as it destroys New York City.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Paul Harvey has passed away
You want to know one of the biggest reasons why this blog exists?It's because for the longest time, I dreamed of being like Paul Harvey.
I first discovered Harvey as a kid in elementary school. Dad always had one of the local AM radio stations playing on his truck as he drove my sister and I to school, and the timing of the commute every morning happened to coincide with Harvey's fifteen minutes of news. And then later on I started listening to his "The Rest of the Story..." broadcasts.
That's what first turned me on to realizing the "other side" of the people and incidents that I read about in the history books. That more often than not there was something else that for whatever reason never got widely chronicled, but always made you appreciate that much more the person or situation.
Well, when blogging came about, picking up on the more weird or odd news of the day, and sharing the more unusual tales from times past, became something that I relished doing here. And there was never a time that I've done that, that I didn't think of Paul Harvey. That I could hear that distinctive "Paul Harvey... good day!" sign-off that he always used.
Today, Paul Harvey, radio legend and communicator extraordinaire, signed off for the last time... and passed away at the age of 90 at his winter home in Phoenix, Arizona.
I am compelled to speak of him as Thomas Jefferson once said of Benjamin Franklin: "No one can replace him." He was... and will ever remain... a true American original.
Meditation on baptism
It was ten years ago today that I was baptized. It happened at First Baptist Church of Elon, the church that sponsored our college's Baptist Student Union. I put on a big white nightshirt and my friend Arnold Gosnell, one of the associate ministers, dunked me down in the bathtub at the front of the church. Later that night I came down with something like the flu and a high fever and leaving the church still damp into late February cold air was admittedly not something conducive to my health...
...But you know what? I couldn't have cared less how sick I might have gotten. That I had finally been baptized, after very many years of struggling to have faith in God, was one of the supreme triumphs of my personal life. Just as Martin Luther was known to often remind himself that "Baptisatus sum" ("I have been baptized"), so too have I looked back on my own baptism as a reminder, however dark the road of life has become, that I have placed my hope in Christ. And that He will never fail me in spite of how often I still do fail Him.
I haven't written very much on this blog about how I came to be a follower of Christ. The reasons for it are myriad: for one thing, the entire story is enormously long, and would doubtless be the largest essay that I'd ever post to this site (and this is one writer who has been accused too much already of being a "wordy wordy monkey"). For another, it goes into territory that I've never been completely comfortable with exploring in any public venue.
If you want the Cliff's Notes abbreviated account: for the better part of ten years I had found it first impossible to believe in God. And then suddenly impossible not to believe in God… but also found it incomprehensible that He would still want anything to do with me. And then I started finding myself around people who did have Christ and were joyfully living for Him, and I began wanting to have that same kind of joy as well... but I didn't think that I deserved it.
So I spent a long time "outside looking in", always hovering around the edges. Gazing longingly at those who had something that was more precious than they might have even realized. Because you can't know how wonderful something like that is until you've spent some time being without it, like I had.
But when I started attending Elon, well... God began letting things happen, I like to think. Starting with how I literally stumbled into the Baptist Student Union my first week there. And then hooking up with the terrific Christian guy who became my roommate in our first apartment. And then, finding the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and a congregation of followers of Christ that had a worship service on campus every Sunday morning. And then there was the InterVarsity retreat on the North Carolina coast that to this day, still burns bright in my memory...
A month after that, I at last came to a place where I not only became reconciled to God, but I could at last also start letting loose the things in my life that had held me down. And I've been following Him ever since. Not perfectly, mind ya. And I'll be the first to admit that my walk with God has fallen and faltered more times than I can count. But the amazing thing about God is that He is merciful. And just as the apostle Paul discovered, His grace is sufficient.
A little over two years later after that, I told Arnold and Debbie, our Baptist Student Union advisers, that I wanted to be baptized before I graduated. So we had the ceremony on the last Sunday of February, 1999. All of my friends from Baptist Student Union and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship came to the church that day to witness me taking this step in identifying with Christ. And that's why I did want to do this. It wasn't to "join a church" or to "wash away my sins". Accepting Christ into my life had already done that. I had been a redeemed follower of Him for a little more than two years. A "saint" as the pastor of the congregation that had been meeting on campus was fond of reminding us. Albeit one who was already undergoing extreme sanctification.
So why did I want to be baptized?
I don't believe that baptism is required at all for salvation. Scripture reminds us repeatedly that we cannot boast of anything that we do. That would be adding a work of our own, to the finished work of Christ on the cross. And nowhere in scripture do we find it anywhere that baptism is an absolute must in order to be saved. We are simply told to believe on Christ, and to have faith in Him.
If that seems too easy for some people well guess what: it is that easy. Christ came to tear down the burden of legalism and slavish devotion to rules unto themselves. We are now living under grace, not law. And there is no way that striving to stick to "the law" will add more of His grace to us.
But I do believe that a person who is sincerely seeking after Christ for His sake, will desire to be baptized. In 1st Peter chapter 3, Peter tells us that baptism is "the pledge of a good conscience toward God". The pledge by itself is meaningless without the desire to live up to it by the person making the pledge. But for the person who does want to make such a pledge, baptism is an enormously wonderful and powerful tangible reminder that we have died unto the old being and that we now reside in this world as His ambassadors.
I hate to say this, but modern Christianity has all too often made baptism something that it's not meant to be. It has become an initiation rite into not just the body of Christ, but into a particular sect of that body... which in turn, is not really baptism into Christ at all. We are taught in the Bible to lean not on our own understanding. So it is that such "baptism" has in many places become more a promise to accept and adhere to the limited reasoning of carnal "wisdom".
So my baptism, while taking place in a Baptist church, wasn't something I did to become a "Baptist". As from the very beginning, I have chosen to call myself simply a "follower of Christ". Which is not meant to be disparagement on those who are Baptists: I readily understand their perspective as fellow servants of God. And I have never met a Baptist who has claimed to be saved by merit of what kind of church he or she worships at either. Just as I've never met a Methodist or Presbyterian or anyone else who stakes their salvation on what the name on the church sign outside says. But I do believe that baptism for simply its own sake, is the most sincere baptism there can possibly be. And in those terms, it is... I believe anyway... one of the most powerful commitments that anyone can make in this life.
On a similar note: baptism has become too much the jurisdiction of an "elite class of Christian" to administer. Please don't take that to mean that I hold any ill regard to those who have followed the calling of God to be pastors, elders and other kinds of ministry who normally perform baptisms. But nowhere in scripture are we told that it is only to be a "higher elect" that can baptize. In truth, any Christian can baptize a new follower of Christ. And I have believed for many years that it is time that we begin encouraging all of the body of Christ to practice our responsibilities as His priests. I once witnessed a sixteen-year old baptize his younger brother in a swimming pool. It was one of the most moving scenes that I ever had the honor of witnessing.
Have we ever seen the spigot turned on full blast for followers of Christ to practice not just baptism, but the love of Christ and love toward others? I can't say that we have...
...but maybe it's time that we did. That we should break baptism out of the church buildings and, like Philip and the eunuch from Ethiopia, let it be anywhere that there is clean water.
And consequently, that we should break the love of Christ out of the buildings... and pour it out wherever God had put us.
