When there's no more room in Hell, the dead shall shop the Earth!

Leave it to the federal government to re-define the old saying about "death and taxes".

THOUSANDS of the dearly departed are receiving "stimulus" checks. It's been estimated that "between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars" worth of publicly-financed "economic recovery" is being written out to those who are long beyond such temporal concepts as money and spending.

And some of these people, it turns out, never received a Social Security number! Meaning that to the government they weren't officially alive to begin with.

Sorta brings a whole new meaning to "the undead" when you think about it...

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Jacob... and Esau? LOST Season 5 finale prologue

This one episode opening has everything that makes Lost the best show on television, and perhaps even of all time: character, dialogue, mystery, special effects that complement but never overwhelm the story... and that amazing score by Michael Giacchino.

I've watched this episode twice since it aired last night, but I've gone over this scene a dozen times again at least. I'm inclined to believe it has a lot of portent about the sixth and final season of Lost: that the story we've been watching, hasn't been the real story at all. That everything we've seen during the past five seasons has been a setup for a cosmic battle between good and evil, God and Satan.

So here it is: the opening scene of "The Incident", where we finally see the face of Jacob and learn that he is not alone on the Island...

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FDA sez: Cheerios cereal a drug

Here's the letter from the Food and Drug Administration to General Mills, telling the company that it is marketing its Cheerios cereal as a drug.

The FDA's problem, it seems, is that General Mills is claiming that Cheerios reduce cholesterol too much.

Meanwhile, those damned Enzyte commercials with "Smilin' Bob" continue to broadcast claims of "male enhancement".

I wonder if this means there'll be a run on Cheerios at the grocery stores now. People do not like being told by their government that something is "bad" for them like this, when they have been enjoying it for so long.

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Last LOST post-episode reaction until January 2010

I am literally hoarse from screaming during the past two hours.

Just the opening few minutes of tonight's Lost fifth season finale, "The Incident", whammed everyone hard upside the head and didn't let up.

Last week we got "Follow the Leader", which was marginally an episode focusing on Richard... even though we didn't actually find out anything new about him that we didn't already know. I enjoyed that episode but for the past week, that lack of new mythology when given the opportunity has bugged me a lot.

So what do we get to make up for it this week? How does Season 5 end?

With a Jacob-centric episode.

Whoa...

Jacob. The statue (a hella lot more about it than has ever been revealed before). The Black Rock. The "lists". What happened to Rose and Bernard. Vincent! How Hurley got talked into going back to the Island. The incident at the Swan station. What happened to Dr. Chang's arm (which I totally called on Twitter several minutes before we saw it)...

Won't be sleeping tonight again, like every other Lost season finale.

The two biggest questions for the next nine months: if Locke is still dead, then who the #&@* is that who went into the statue to see Jacob?

(My guess right off the cuff: that's really "the Monster" that's been imitating Locke all this time, and it was the Monster that we saw goading Jacob on the Island in the 1800s-era first scene of tonight's episode. There is some kind of enmity between Jacob and whatever the Monster really is, and the Monster has been trying to kill Jacob all this time. And now, in a master stroke of irony, Benjamin Linus himself has been manipulated into doing what the Monster has failed to do on its own thus far.)

And as Marvin the Martian once put it: "Where's the Ka-boom?! There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Ka-boom!" LOVED how the episode ended with the total reverse of the usual Lost black card: blinding white this time, with Lost in black lettering.

Ye gods, my brain is frazzled after the past two hours!

Okay, I'm gonna have to watch that again. The scenes with Jacob alone might make this the most important Lost episode to date.

And if tomorrow is like any other Lost finale day-after, I'll likely be posting some more thoughts and observations as they hit me :-)

EDIT 11:44 p.m. EST: So... what is it that "lies in the shadow of the statue"?

Richard answered in Latin: "Ille qui nos omnes servabit".

Just hearing from multiple sources that it translates into English as "He who will save us all."

Discuss!

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No jokin' about no smokin': North Carolina to ban lighting up in public

For the record: I don't smoke. I don't recommend anyone taking up smoking. It's a nasty habit and I've seen what it can do to one's health. It's not something I'd wish on anybody.

But I'm also of the mind that it's left to the individual whether or not he or she chooses to smoke. And that means that it should be up to business owners to decide whether or not they allow smoking in places they own like restaurants and bars.

And I also have come to believe that in the few short months since she was sworn in, that Bev Perdue has already become the worst Governor that I have ever seen North Carolina have in my lifetime. She's already "effed"-up our educational budget bigtime. Now this...

"An important and historic day for North Carolina." That's what Perdue declared today as she announced she would immediately sign a bill just passed by the state's General Assembly that will BAN smoking in ALL public places.

In all honesty, I never thought I would live to see the day that smoking in public was outlawed in, of all places, North Carolina: the biggest tobacco-producing region in the world.

And as I said before: I don't smoke, and wouldn't want anyone to take it up either. But as an infringement on individual liberty, what Governor Perdue and the General Assembly are doing is wrong.

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$9 TRILLION unaccounted for by the Federal Reserve...

...and they haven't a clue where all that money went.

Watch as Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve stumbles and stalls as she tries to 'splain how in the world did her bunch lose $9,000,000,000,000:

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"The Incident": LOST Season 5 ends tonight... with a bang?!

The situation as things stand now on Lost...

- Still trapped in 1977, Jack is hellbent on following through with the now-dead Daniel's plan to change the future and make it so that Oceanic Flight 815 never crashes in 2004.

- Daniel's plan to alter history, incidentally, hinges on detonating the Jughead hydrogen bomb before the drilling at the Swan Station releases the energy in what the Swan orientation film called "the incident".

- Sawyer, Juliet and Kate are on the DHARMA Initiative submarine that has left the Island.

- Dr. Chang now knows that Miles is his son, and that Hurley and his friends are from the future.

- Meanwhile in 2007, Locke has taken charge of the Others. He has decided to lead them all on a little hike into the jungle to find Jacob: the unseen "great man" who supposedly calls all the shots for the Others.

- What Locke hasn't told anyone yet... except an obviously horrified Ben... is that he intends to kill Jacob when they finally meet him.

- And there is still the little matter of Ilana, Bram and the rest of the Ajira Flight 316 survivors who have taken Frank hostage and are presumably headed toward whatever "lies in the shadow of the statue".

The penultimate season of Lost comes down to a two-hour finale tonight at 9 p.m. on ABC. And "The Incident" threatens to be the most explosive (literally) cliffhanger episode in television history. Will Jack explode the Jughead? Will we finally get to see Jacob? What does lie in the shadow of the statue? And will we ever discover why Richard Alpert never ages a day?!

The DHARMA Initiative munchies are being prepared even now. I might try to Twitter spontaneous reaction during commercial breaks. Otherwise, expect the post-episode commentary later this evening.

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BIOSHOCK 2 to include multiplayer PREQUEL game (and why I don't like the sound of it)

I'll admit that right now there's not a whole lot of information about this to yet pass final judgment. But I sure hope that 2K Games has taken some things into consideration with this move...

BioShock 2, the upcoming sequel to 2007's haunting and intellect-jarring first-person shooter, will have a multiplayer aspect: something that was absent from the original BioShock. 2K has hired Digital Extremes - a company that has worked on successful titles such as Unreal Tournament and Dark Sector - to concentrate on BioShock 2's multiplayer component. However it has become clear that what Digital Extremes will be doing is not so much a mere "complement" to BioShock 2 as it will be an entire beast of a gaming experience in its own right.

In multiplayer mode you'll have access to "weapons, plasmid and tonic unlocks, so that you'll ultimately be able to kit out your player with hundreds of combinations to compete to earn online experience points."

Sounds good so far. But wait! Here's what's popping up a huge red flag...

The mode will act as a prequel, and it is shaping up to be something of a must-play, as gamers will become test subjects for the plasmids made by Sinclair Solutions, and will have to explore the world of Rapture and see it fall into decadence and, ultimately, into ruin. The wide variety of plasmids and tonics are certain to give birth to a lot of interesting combinations...

Players will step into the shoes of Rapture citizens and learn more about the fall of Rapture as they progress through the experience...

Experience Rapture before it was reclaimed by the ocean and engage in combat over iconic environments in locations such as Kashmir Restaurant and Mercury Suites, all of which have been reworked from the ground up to deliver a fast-paced multiplayer experience.

So multiplayer BioShock 2 is going to provide our first-ever look at what Rapture was like before the cataclysmic events of New Years Eve 1958, when the underwater utopian metropolis finally succumbed to the dark side of human nature and erupted into civil war. As one who loves the lore of BioShock, I can dig that much.

But what about the BioShock fans out there who either can't get in on multiplayer for various reasons, or who simply don't care for this kind of game play?

Are they going to be cheated out of some delicious BioShock history? Will they be punished for their geography or their preference for solo play, and locked out of getting a look at pre-fall Mercury Suites and the Kashmir?

Because I'm one of those myself. I've done online multiplayer "shoot 'em ups" before and yeah they're fun for awhile, but personally I find engaging story and characters in a game like BioShock and Gears of War to be more intriguing. I'd much rather explore the worlds of those games at my own pace, instead of having to constantly worry about some 15-year old hormone machine calling himself "Lance" all the way in Minneapolis sniping me from the shadows so he can up his Xbox Live gamer score.

So are solitary players like myself going to become a segregated class in the social order of Rapture? Are 2K Games and Digital Extremes going to dictate that individuality is undesirable, that we must be collective in our game play?

Somehow I don't think Andrew Ryan would approve of that going on in his city.

And I can't believe that there are many solo-oriented BioShock fans who are going to enjoy that very much either.

I'm not going to ask for multiplayer to be stripped out of BioShock 2. For those who thrive on that sort of video gaming, I will sincerely hope that BioShock 2's will set a whole new standard for multiplaying excellence. But I am going to be anticipating that 2K Games and Digital Extremes have taken "the rest of us" into account, and will give lone players a chance to also fully explore Rapture at the height of its glory.

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One small kiss for a teen, one giant slap in the face to "Christian" legalism

Tyler Frost, who was suspended and kept from graduating by the principal of Heritage Christian School in Findlay, Ohio for the "sin" of taking his girlfriend to her prom, is shown here giving Rebecca Smoody a kiss that in the immortal words of Andy Griffith was "right smack-dab on the MOUTH!"

Said kiss also took place within ready eyesight of Heritage Christian School, which has ridiculously banned its students from dancing, hand holding, kissing, "rock music" and other things... both on campus and off.

I hope and pray that the windows of that school were filled with the gazes of curious students who beheld Tyler's act of rebellion against "the rules".

Does this mean that Heritage Christian principal Tim England will have Frost expelled?

Well, like I've said already (maybe too much at that): Tyler Frost did nothing wrong as a follower of Christ. This is all about Heritage Christian School and Calvary Baptist Church that runs it, throwing its own legalistic weight around. The school and church are a pack of Pharisees: setting up stumbling blocks that keep people from knowing the real love and grace of Jesus Christ. And so far as this blogger is concerned, Tyler Frost is being way more a sincere follower of Christ than Tim England and Gordon Dickson, who have placed worship of their church's doctrine above that of serving Christ in loving humility.

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Hyper-inflation, here we come!

The United States government will be borrowing 46 cents for ever dollar that it spends for the current fiscal year.

This country is now on the fast track to joining Zimbabwe. Or maybe the Weimar Republic is a better comparison...

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Republicans trying to hijack the "Tea Party" movement

Politico.com is reporting that GOP governors Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas are attempting to pull off what is being called "Tea Party 2.0".

But a lot of people are seeing this as an effort by the Republican Party's leadership and elected officials to "hitch their wagons" to the grassroots "Tea Party" movement that has taken place over the past couple of months in protest of Washington's runaway taxing and spending.

And I'm inclined to more than slightly agree with that sentiment.

Look at what is happening to the Republicans of late: as a party they aren't even pretending anymore that their purpose is about anything but regaining political power. And damned few average Americans are taking them seriously as a result.

(And I write this as one who is still currently registered as a Republican, for whatever the hell worth that's supposed to have...)

So let me be succinct: the Tea Party drive is the one marginally successful movement that we have seen in American politics of late. In its purest, most unadulterated form it is something that is not a product of any political party, and should remain above and beyond partisan influence if it is to achieve its greatest potency.

And the Republicans, with nothing to show for themselves (neither do the Democrats but I digress), are now seeing the Tea Parties not as a thing to emulate but as a thing to exploit.

So to those who have been active in the Tea Party movement, I would like to suggest the following and ask that you take it to heart...

KEEP THE REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADERSHIP AS FAR THE HELL AWAY FROM THE TEA PARTIES AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

Do whatever the #*@& is necessary to maintain this as a movement driven by the average citizen. If you ever hold a rally, only allow private individuals the opportunity to take to the podium and voice their concerns. Don't give the elected officials a chance to grandstand and steal the momentum that your passion and energy has produced. You aren't doing this to hear "them": you are doing this to make damned sure that "they" hear YOU!

There is no reason at all to put any faith in either the Republicans or the Democrats. When the two major "parties" are more infatuated with the antics of Rush Limbaugh and Wanda Sykes than they are with being about solid principles and responsible government, something is very wrong. They sure as hell aren't going to do anything about their own mess.

And you shouldn't give them a chance to make a mess of your own efforts either.

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Venetia Phair, namer of Pluto, has passed away

The sad news has arrived that Venetia Phair has passed away in her native England at the age of 90.

It was her idea to give the solar system's ninth planet (or first "Trans-Neptunian object" if you're some kind of wacko liberal astronomer... just kidding :-) the name "Pluto". Nine years old at the time in 1930 and born Venetia Burney, she was already quite knowledgeable about astronomy and classical mythology when "Planet X" was discovered.

Click on the link above for the entire fascinating story of how one little girl's breakfast-time suggestion became enthusiastically embraced by not just the scientific community, but also by the entire world.

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A question for my fellow Christians

If we are commanded to "test the spirits" (1st John 4:1)...

...then how much more so should we boldly question the motivations of mere men?

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Our tax dollars at work: Training Chinese prostitutes how to drink responsibly

Official policy of the United States federal government is now to refer to prostitutes as "female sex workers" (FSW) and to their pimps as "gatekeepers".

It would almost be funny, except that $2.6 million of our tax money is being spent on teaching Chinese "female sex workers" how to "drink responsibly".

From CNSNews.com...

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."

"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.

"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.

The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi...

I guess it's only fitting: our government has been prostituting itself to China and just about anyone else for so long anyway.

Feel free to leave comments. Even if it's a joke that would normally be better left unsaid. At this point, I don't care.

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MPAA wants teachers to camcorder movies, not rip DVDs

Try this one the next time you go to see a blockbuster movie like Star Trek in the theater: record it with a camcorder and if you get caught, tell the cinema management that "I'm a teacher who needs this for my students!"

Nutty though it sounds, that is what the Motion Picture Association of America is telling teachers to do instead of ripping video from copyrighted DVDs if they want to get clips for classroom purposes. The MPAA has even prepared an instructional video (left) demonstrating how teachers can set up a television with DVD player, and then aim their camcorder at the screen to record it. Which is not only silly but as the article at Ars Technica notes, this is much more laborious and time-consuming on the part of the teacher as opposed to digitally capturing (AKA "ripping" the video segments that they need).

This should be a moot thing anyway, since use of copyrighted material for legitimate educational purposes has long been acknowledged and allowed under fair use provisions.

And how is this different from letting students come in with projects they have made using copyrighted material anyway? I took some communications classes at Elon and a lot of other students did work with clips from movies and TV shows that flat-out astounded everyone who watched 'em. In the modern era does that mean that according to the MPAA those students would all be criminals 'cuz they didn't capture their footage with a camcorder?

(They'd prolly still look better than the MPAA's own "instructional video", that's for sure...)

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Tyler Frost gives his girlfriend a "great" night at her prom... and his "Christian" principal punishes him for it

This is gonna be another one of "those" posts that lately are coming all too frequently. The sort where I succumb to the angels of my lesser nature and resort to vernacular that in days of enforced polity would have seen me heavily fined or banished from the Realm.

(But hey, I figure that I've earned enough cred as both a serious writer and a follower of Christ, that I can open up the proverbial "can o' whup-ass" when the situation demands bringing out the heavy guns. So it is here...)

I wrote here on Saturday about Tyler Frost of Findlay, Ohio, the 17-year old high school senior who was excited about taking his girlfriend to the prom. But alas! Young Master Frost's dear lady is a student at a public high school... while Frost is weeks away from graduating from Heritage Christian School.

And the merciless, soul-less automaton of cultish Churchianity named Tim England - the principal of Heritage Christian - gave Our Hero an ultimatum: deny your girlfriend her senior prom or you don't walk with the other graduates.

Heritage Christian School bans dancing, hand-holding, "rock music" (whatever that means these days), and basically anything else that was verboten in the days of Puritan extremists. And this doesn't mean just on school grounds but everywhere the students might happen to be.

Frost had to get a form signed by England so that he could be a guest at Findlay High School's prom. England signed the form, then told Frost that he would be suspended for the rest of the year if he went.

So what did Tyler Frost do?

He took his girlfriend to her prom.

Behold the photograph of the beautiful young couple, holding hands and having what Frost called a "great" time!

(Photo credit: KENT TARBOX/ The Courier/AP)

Tyler Frost chose to sacrifice graduation with his classmates (a group that was only going to number four students anyway) so that he could have memories of a wonderful night that would last him and his girlfriend the rest of their lives.

Tyler Frost chose to put the happiness of the one that he loves over the ridiculous and non-biblical rules of Heritage Christian School.

And in doing so, Tyler Frost, as his principal Tim England put it: "In life, we constantly make decisions whether we are going to please self or please God. (Frost) chose one path, and the school committee chose the other." Frost is now suspended, as England had threatened.

But you know what? I think it's very obvious who in this situation is pleasing "self", and who is pleasing God.

We are told in all four Gospels that one of the biggest reasons why the Pharisees sought to have Jesus killed was because He broke "the rules". Jesus healed the sick and lame on the Sabbath, and because He violated "the law" that was enough motivation for His enemies to want to see Him dead.

Someone in the previous post commented an extremely powerful point: "If his girlfriend were in a car accident and lay dying, would Heritage Christian School expel Tyler because he chose to hold her hand in loving compassion?"

Hey, according to "the law" of Heritage Christian School, it would have to expel Tyler or any other student who committed such an act of sympathy... because they broke "the rules" and according to Heritage Christian and Calvary Baptist Church that runs it, such a student would have to suffer the penalty for it.

Tim England and the "school committee" of this so-called "Christian" school are completely ignorant of the fact that the penalty has already been paid for... by the very One that they profess to be followers of!

Jesus came to do away with the rule of law, which had enslaved mankind to ritual and empty "religion". He died so that we might instead live under the rule of love!

And it is love which is completely absent from the actions of Tim England, Heritage Christian School and Calvary Baptist Church of Findlay, Ohio.

Tyler Frost chose to honor Christ in his actions, though he may not realize yet how much so.

And Tim England, his school and his church have chosen to serve themselves!

Mr. England and Calvary Baptist Church turned their stone-cold hearts to glorifying their own understanding (didn't they ever read Proverbs 3:5?). They put the demands of their doctrine above humility and prayer.

Tim England and Calvary Baptist chose to worship their own church... and they are proud to be persecuting Tyler Frost for it.

These people are not practicing Christianity. They are practicing Churchianity.

Look at this picture. Here is Tim England, the principal of Heritage Christian School...

See those heartless, pitiless eyes? I have seen such men too damned many times in my life. That is the look of a man who has no grasp at all of the mercy of Christ... and he probably doesn't want to understand it either. That's the visage of a man who demands that "the rules" be followed without exception, because in his mind that is how "God" is pleased.

"Christians" such as these are the sort that turned on the gas at Bergen-Belsen and then went home to dinner.

Tim England and Calvary Baptist are of the same mindset as the Pharisees that demanded Christ be put to death.

These self-professed "leaders" and "authorities" have set themselves up in the place of God. They and countless more like them across the centuries have caused more suffering and misery to the body of Christ than have the combined efforts of such persecutors as Nero and Stalin.

I will not hate them. But I have no sympathy for such people as these. They are not of Christ, and it's way past time that they be recognized and called out for what they are.

I'm not asking anyone else to hate them either. But I am gonna do everything I can to speak the plain truth...

...that Christ's sacrifice tore the temple curtain in two. People like Tim England are trying to put that curtain back up.

And we as followers of Christ have no business at all following the lead of such "authorities" as Tim England and the leadership of Calvary Baptist Church.

Should we, as followers of Christ, rebel against people like Tim England, Calvary Baptist Church and anyone else who dares lord over us in the name of Christ?

HELL YEAH WE SHOULD!

And people like England oughtta study 1st Corinthians more, if they are going to be in the business of running a "Christian" school.

As for Tyler Frost: my hat's off to ya, good sir! You've already done more with the heart and mind that God gave ya than a lot of people ever do. And so far as this blogger's concerned: you, Tyler Frost, are a real Christian leader!

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So you want some more STAR TREK, do ya?

I honestly can not remember the last time I have seen this many people so jazzed about a movie as is happening right now with Star Trek. It's like a kind of magic that we had taken for granted in summer blockbusters had gotten lost somehow, and now it's been found again. If you haven't already you seriously owe it to yourself to see Star Trek the way it's meant to be viewed: in a crowded theater with a wide variety of people who have no idea what a thrill they are in for.

(By the way, my good friend Phillip Arthur has just served up his own rave review of Star Trek. And here's the review by Yours Truly :-)

And if you've seen Star Trek and are dying for more of this relaunched saga, then I'll strongly recommend Star Trek: Countdown, IDW Publishing's official graphic novel prequel to the new motion picture. With a story provided by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (who scribed the Star Trek screenplay), Star Trek: Countdown reveals the origin of Nero and the chain of events that bleed into the movie. It also very deftly ties together the "classic" Star Trek timeline with the one established by J.J. Abrams' reboot (I especially like the explanation for how the Narada is so overwhelmingly powerful a ship for what is supposed to be a simple "mining vessel"). How good is Star Trek: Countdown? Let's put it this way: on some levels it darn nearly redeems the fiasco that was Star Trek Nemesis.

Star Trek: Countdown should be available at most good bookstores right now, and it's also available on Amazon.com, including in that newfangled "Kindle" format. However you get it (legally 'course), it's a rollickin' good helping of dessert after the spectacular feast that is the new Star Trek movie!

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