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6 Horrible Lessons Hollywood Loves to Teach Kids
#3. A One-Speed Bike You Can Take Anywhere!
As Seen In:
Dennis The Menace, The Goonies, ET
In the course of one adventurous day, a squad of movie kids will visit the water tower, the junkyard, the school, their house and the lake, all on their one-speed Huffy. And they still have the energy to get up to a variety of wacky hijinks upon arrival! What's this shit about today's kids being lazy and obese?
Hell, in The Goonies the kids bike from their house all the way to the abandoned restaurant in a single thirty second montage. Even the fat kid.
In the Real World:
Eighty percent of the reason being a kid sucks is you can't drive. You can't just zoom across town whenever you feel like it, you've got to wait for Mom or Dad to get home, or save up your allowance for cab fare, or latch onto the back of a garbage truck. Your ability to participate in adult-level adventures is thus severely limited.
To smooth over this depressing fact, Hollywood gives kids Lance Armstrong-esque biking abilities. In reality, the Goonies kids would wind up getting to the shore well after dark, too winded to even walk and having lost their hilarious fat buddy Chunk to a heart attack on that last hill climb.
Taking the pro-bike propaganda a step further, kids movies often paint kids who aren't riding a bike as insanely hostile toward anyone caught pedaling. In both The Goonies and The Karate Kid main characters are pushed off a cliff for daring to be on something not propelled by a motor. According to Hollywood, your Huffy isn't just a magical teleportation device, it's a choice in the battle between good and evil.
#2. Bad Guys Are Slower, Clumsier and Dumber Than Kids
As Seen In:
Home Alone, Pokemon, Scooby Doo, Loony Tunes, The Goonies
Wile E. Coyote made millions for Warner Brothers by driving home the fact that even with superior technology and elaborate planning, no one will ever catch the good guys, because the bad guys will always forget the little details. Like the giant fucking mountain in the way of the rocket.
There is a whole genre of kid adventure movies that drive home the same point, that the bad guys who're after you will always make some stupid mistake or, most importantly, underestimate you. They can't hope to match the smarts and sheer moxie of a fast, clever kid!
In the Real World:
This is one Hollywood lesson that's legitimately dangerous. Real crooks show up pissed off, desperate and with weapons. And, even strung out on meth, they're not stupid enough to be foiled by quickly scampering under coffee tables (even crackheads are known to negotiate simple obstacles). The real world has a term for kids who try to use Micro Machines to outsmart bad guys during a robbery: missing and presumed dead.
And don't get us started on Scooby-Doo. When a criminal goes to enough trouble to fake their own death so that they can use an elaborate system of projected lights and bed sheets to convince the entire town that the bank is haunted while they rob it, they fucking mean business. Don't show up with your stoned friends to try to stop them, call in a SWAT Team.
#1. The School Bully is Abused at Home, So It's Not His Fault
As Seen In:
Breakfast Club, Harry Potter, How to Eat Fried Worms, Countless others
It always goes the same way: the troupe of good kids spends half the story dealing with some big bad bullies who rule the school. But eventually they meet the bully's drunk redneck dad and everybody suddenly understands why the bully is such a dick.
"I hate my father!"
Then in the spirit of goodwill, the bully becomes good and they all band together and defeat the real evil in the world, Grown Ups! It's a seductive way of thinking for anyone who's ever been a victim of bullying. I'm in this locker, smelling some fat kid's sweat socks because the bully hates his parents!
That way you can rationalize the bad treatment without having to admit that you're 1) just physically weaker and 2) an insufferable nerd. That might mean giving up things that you enjoy, like wearing T-Shirts that express your opinion on the Greedo Shot First controversy.
In the Real World:
The real lesson to learn is that sometimes people are just cruel, and sometimes the cruel people are way more powerful than you. The bully doesn't have to have a mean family member that sits atop the jerk food chain, dishing out verbal abuse that trickles down onto your sorry ass. Sometimes a bully's just a spoiled rich kid who never experienced a minute of hardship. And often, the bully will go on to great success and continue to bully people as an adult, from inside a huge mansion.
Up top.
Just look at the way Ken Lay stole all the lunch money from a multinational corporation and died on a beach in the Caribbean surrounded by women in bikinis. In the real world, the bully wins.
If we haven't totally ruined your favorite childhood movies yet, allow us to finish the job with 8 Classic Movies That Got Away With Gaping Plot Holes and The 6 Most Depressing Happy Endings in Movie History. There, that oughta do it.


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Is the "Jesus's wife" papyrus a forgery? And other queries.
Thanks to all for the great comments and questions in the multiple threads below. I'll take up a few of those and some I received in response to my Washington Post piece. But before that, I want to respond to something else.
Esteemed New Testament scholar Francis Watson appears to have built a coalition of naysayers: he argues that the new papyrus is a forgery. The Guardian picked up this story, and other esteemed commentators, such as Mark Goodacre and Andrew Sullivan have propagated this opinion through their wide-reaching blog platforms. I am fully aware of modern forgeries, and I am skeptical of new, sensational finds, as are all of you. It is of course possible that this fragment is a forgery of a modern pen on ancient papyrus. It's possible that some portion of the ink will be analyzed to try to date it. Until that happens, though, here is a response to the naysayers.
1. All Francis Watson demonstrates is that this fragment shares some verbal similarity with sayings in the Gospel of Thomas—that's it! There is no logical step that makes the text a modern forgery. All the words except one (shafe—"to swell") are extremely common. Furthermore, we know that other collections of Jesus sayings were in circulation in antiquity. The Greek fragments in P.Oxy. 1, 654, and 655, which have significant overlap with the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas (but also differ in many details), are ancient examples of the genre. Are the naysayers prepared to call those Greek fragments modern forgeries? If not, why not? What's the difference?
1b. Watson's argument about the "line break" cannot bear the weight he places on it. Manuscripts written in scriptio continua break words up all the time, and the word in question is among the most common words there is: na-ei ("to me, for me"). Moreover, the preposition na is not even present but a proposed reconstruction of the previous line (albeit a reasonable one).
2. It's hard to overstate how common the vocabulary of this fragment is (again except for shafe, to swell) in Coptic and in early Christian texts. Showing direct textual dependence of common words and phrases is almost impossible—in any language, at any time.
3. And yet there is one word that does not match its use in the Gospel of Thomas or its first entry in Coptic dictionaries, and it's the crucial word under discussion: wife (hime). The most common version of this word is s-hime (with an aspirated h). Why would our alleged forger choose a less common version of the headline-grabbing word, and also diverge from the Gospel of Thomas at precisely this instance?
4. If a modern forgery, how does one produce the back (verso) of the papyrus? Perhaps this is easily done; I'm not an expert at forgery. But it can't be avoided that the verso has ink traces that look quite authentically faded through abrasion over time.
5. And now for an argument from ethos ("character"), as was done in ancient rhetoric: Do the naysayers personally know Roger Bagnall? It seems unlikely, the way in which they dismiss this veritable Dean of Papyrology's autoptic evaluation of the fragment. Roger Bagnall is in a group of two or three people on earth whose papyrological opinions are universally respected. Roger Bagnall could not be less of a sensationalist. He is as serious, sober, and critical of a scholar as there is. He is one of a few papyrologists that other top papyrologists contact for help. And he reads papyri every day. Every day. (Thus endeth the encomium.)
For those reasons, I am skeptical of the naysayers. Personally, I don't have much at stake in whether the papyrus is authentic or not. But nothing I've seen even suggests, much less demonstrates, that this is a modern forgery.
Now on to other varia that came up during the threads:
On the topic of all Jewish men were married: Of course, the vast majority of men were married. But that proves nothing about Jesus. First, he was a charismatic, itinerant, miracle-worker. Like John the Baptist, he wasn't normal. Second, he wasn't exactly known for his support of traditional family ties. In all the Synoptic Gospels, even the domesticated Luke, Jesus questions or straightforwardly denigrates family ties, all the while emphasizing the new spiritual family under his heavenly Father.
On papyri as just rubbish: One of the unique features of papyrology is that it allows us to see a cross-section of ancient society (even if it's mostly of the societies of Ptolemaic, Roman, Byzantine, and early Arab Egypt). Almost all other historical sources only preserve the history of upper classes and only of public life. Papyri, because most of them have been discovered in trash heaps, afford unique opportunities to see lower classes and also snippets of private life (shopping lists, classroom handwriting exercises, etc.). To denigrate a find just because it's a scrap of papyrus is ignorant: the Oxyrhynchus papyri contain Homer, the Bible, letters of bishops and monks, alongside tax receipts, domestic lists, quotidian letters, and so on.
On the appearance of the fragment: The materials and hand are not very remarkable. It's not a practiced hand, but so what? Neither was Paul's (Gal 6:11). Handwriting was and is a techne. You might think today of typing. Some people are finger-poking typists. That doesn't make them dumb or deviant, just as elegant, effortless, and rapid typing do not make one smart or mainstream.
On the rectangular shape: It appears to me, as I said already, that if authentically ancient, this fragment has been cut by a middle man in order to sell multiple parts for a higher price. As to the charge of why did he or she cut off after "my wife..." when certainly the rest could have garnered a higher price: The answer is that almost certainly the middle man didn't know what the text said. Hardly anyone in the world, even antiquities dealers in the Middle East, knows Coptic. That being said, this whole event does make one wonder, if authentic, whether the rest of this papyrus will turn up and be sold for a very handsome sum.
On which Mary is mentioned: Unfortunately for historians, there are lots of Marys in general in antiquity and late antiquity. Tal Ilan did a prosopographic study that showed about half of all Jewish women in Palestine in the Second Temple period had some form of either the name Mariam or Salome. More recently, Stephen Shoemaker has argued that the Mary in question in the noncanonical literature does not necessarily refer to the Magdalene. The Gnostic "Mary," he argues, was a composite figure that drew on the identities of both Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary. And we know from the canonical Gospels that Jesus was also close with the family from Bethany, which included a Mary of its own. So yes, lots of Marys, but the Magdalene has remained central due to her unique combination of claims on apostolic authority (perseverance in discipleship at the cross, witness to the empty tomb, and especially her private resurrection appearance and role as apostola apostolorum).
On the charge of sensationalism: In my first post, I defended Karen King's roll-out of the scholarship. I still think the landing page on the Harvard Divinity School website was very well done, and her making available her article manuscript in advance of publication deserves special praise. I'm not sure I would have done that -- it was very gracious. That being said, I have two reasons for beginning to be critical: first, the title of the fragment seems to invite sensationalism. The "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" doesn't describe the text accurately. I think back to the first papyrus of this kind, P.Oxy. 1, which was published in 1897 and titled simply Logia Iesou. That's accurate: "Sayings of Jesus," about which we don't know much else. For this new fragment, how about "Sayings of Jesus about Family Relations." Not as sensational, to be sure, but more accurate.
Second, I hadn't known at first about the plan for a television special. It's hard to maintain a scholarly sensibility about the discovery with a cable TV special. Again, on the whole, I am still very positively disposed toward how Karen King presented the discovery, with two minor quibbles, only one of which may have been in her control.
About the Author
Michael Peppard is associate professor of theology at Fordham University, author of The World's Oldest Church and The Son of God in the Roman World, and on Twitter @MichaelPeppard.
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On the topic of all Jewish men were married: Of course, the vast majority of men were married. But that proves nothing about Jesus.Nor does it disprove anything. Were the apostles married? First, he was a charismatic, itinerant, miracle-worker.No. First, he was a carpenter. Like John the Baptist, he wasnt normal.The neighbors who commented on him in Mark 6 seemed to think he was normal, or had been, up to that point. "Is not this the carpenter?" Second, he wasnt exactly known for his support of traditional family ties.He attended a wedding with his mother and took care of the wine shortage at her request. (Was that one of his sisters' weddings?) As he was dying, he saw to his mother's protection by the beloved disciple. In all the Synoptic Gospels, even the domesticated Luke, Jesus questions or straightforwardly denigrates family ties, all the while emphasizing the new spiritual family under his heavenly Father.The gospels were written years after Jesus' life. Many things were left out. Certain things were added or emphasized to suit the needs of the writer, editor, community leader, etc. Certain things that survived have been de-emphasized, distorted, and/or ignored by churchmen down the centuries. ("Call no man father," e.g. "Do not multiply words like the gentiles do." "When you pray, go into your closet." "Do this in memory of me." Etc.)Just as we can't know if Jesus was or was not married, we cannot know if he really went home with his parents after being lost in the temple and really was subject to them. We cannot know if he really related the parable of the prodigal son being welcomed back into the family. We cannot know if he really loved the Lazarus/Mary/Martha family and delighted in spending time with them. He didn't denigrate Peter's family; he cured the mother-in-law. He didn't denigrate the Zebedees. Saying he "denigrates family ties" is like saying he had a wife. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Michael, James McGrath agrees with you about Watson's theory ... http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/09/is-the-gospel-of... ... On the topic of all Jewish men were married: Of course, the vast majority of men were married. But that proves nothing about Jesus. First, he was a charismatic, itinerant, miracle-worker. Like John the Baptist, he wasnt normal. Second, he wasnt exactly known for his support of traditional family ties. In all the Synoptic Gospels, even the domesticated Luke, Jesus questions or straightforwardly denigrates family ties, all the while emphasizing the new spiritual family under his heavenly Father.But, Jesus really was different than John the Baptist - he wasn't an ascetic (Matthew 9:14).And he very often spoke in terms of marriage/bridal imagery, and his first miracle took place at a wedding.
"all Jewish men were married But how many were the Messiah? Someone commented on an earlier post, if he were married, he wasn't much of a family man, always on the road, etc. I think that's true. It seems like he could redeem the world or he could raise a family, but it would be hard to do both well. And I imagine it would be challenging for a woman to be married to God.
Good response, Gerelyn.
Michael, thanks for these posts - they're great!
At a discussion last evening of historians, archivists, and academics who seemed to know something about papyrus and ink, there seemed to be a consensus that this was a forgery. The course of the discussion: 1. looked similar to forgeries previously seen by one of the guests, in particular, the snippet means the forger doesn't have to produce a larger document; 2. the words referring to Jesus' wife look to be of a different "ink" than the other words (by someone claiming to have an copy enlarged on computer); 3. Harvard has announced it will not be publishing the findings; 4. the scholar herself has declined to accept it as genuine while awaiting study by others.I would say none of the discussants had the least interest in whether or not Jesus was married. Though they seem to accept that he actually existed!!!
Gerelyn, You appeal to various Gospels to make interesting points, but in doing so you reduce them to giving historical, rather than rhetorical points of view. Is he a carpenter, or a carpenter's son? In Mark he is Mary's son; in John he is called the son of Joseph, and his mother's name is never mentioned. You are also accepting his mother's presence at the cross, which occurs only in John, along with the unnamed and still unknown "beloved disciple;" whereas elsewhere all his disciples fled. Gospels make theological points, and only accidentally do they give us history. For example, in exactly what year was John the Baptist executed? It could be as late as the mid-30s, throwing off all our dating of Jesus' ministry.Arguing about Jesus from the Gospels is a very tricky enterprise.
Michael, thank you for the Shoemaker piece, and for all your comments on this topic. I particularly appreciate your remarks on the identity of Mary since you1) mention Mary of Bethany. Shoemaker looks at the Pistis Sophia, which takes place on the Mount of Olives (where Bethany is) and has Martha, but not her sister unless she is MM or the Mother of Jesus.2) credit MM for witnessing all three credal events, the death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus. It bothers me that Karen King argues that the Gospel of Mary is by MM because of discipleship and resurrection themes, and the 2 accounts of MB are about discipleship (the better part) and the raising of her brother. Not the same as MM, but awfully close.
Hi, Michael:Agree that arguing about Jesus from anything -- gospels, bits of papyrus, private revelations, etc. -- is tricky. Agree that the gospels don't agree on details. Agree that it's particularly useless to imagine the gospels are history or biography instead of . . . sermons, theology, etc. In Mark, the first gospel, the neighbors say Jesus is a carpenter. Not a carpenter's son. Agree that his mother is at the cross only in John, but in Matthew and Mark there are "many" women, looking on from a distance. (Were they neglecting their families by being "always on the road?")I think it's funny how some of Karen King's fellow scholars are revealing their . . . jealousy? ----------Hi, Margaret: If those "discussants" were not interested in "whether or not Jesus was married," what was the point of the discussion? What word on the fragment, other than WIFE, is of interest to anyone? They reached a "consensus that this was a forgery?" Amazing.
Gerelyn: when did you switch your opinion to "maybe yes, maybe no"? You used to insist that Jesus was obviously married and only people hiding ulterior motives (misogyny, professional jealousy...) would say otherwise. Now you're agreeing that the marital status of Jesus is not something we can know -- the very position you used to deride -- and yet you continue to impute ugly motives to everyone but yourself. What you're doing is called trolling, and you've done enough of it on this subject.
G: If those discussants were not interested in whether or not Jesus was married, what was the point of the discussion?" The point was forgery as far as I could tell, and showing off their expertise on papyrus, forgeries, etc.Believe it or not, I think there are even many Catholics! who don't care whether or not Jesus was married. In fact, what difference does it make one way or the other?As one of the guests pointed out the real theological issue was whether he was God!
Hi, Margaret: Agree that it should make no difference. (So why does it, iyho?)Googling "Jesus wife" brings up only 304,000,000 leads. (The one at the top from Time is interesting, imho.) Weird how something so unimportant has resulted in sooooo many words, discussions, threads, comments, (angry e-mails), reactions, consensuses, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
G: Why? The media love the story. Catching out Christians in counterfactuals is a great game.But, of course, scholars may have a genuine interest in the matter.
We've got several extant Gnostic texts. Let's take The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, shall we? In one of the sections, Jesus plays hide and seek with some boys. Some women throw the boys into a furnace, but Jesus transforms them into baby goatskids. Then Jesus transforms them back into boys, unharmed by the furnace.So was there an "intriguing debate in early Christianity" about child Jesus transmuting humans into animals? No. [These were Gnostics saying this stupid stuff. HELLO? heretics, anyone?]Why not? If you take this piece of maybe-forged-maybe-authentic-but-clearly-Gnostic fluff as something serious to discuss, why not the transmuting Jesus?There's nothing intellectually honest about this topic. Nothing.
"And I imagine it would be challenging for a woman to be married to God." Hmmm....no one in Jesus' time took him for God--the Trinitarian debates were far in the future. But...what an intriguing thought. To be married to someone "like us in all things but sin..." Imagine how the idea of having to live up to that husbandly status could pressure ordinary marriages: "I bet JESUS never left the seat up...""Do you think Jesus would just leave his socks on the floor like that?""Honey, would you be kenotic for once, and wash out your own d@*& coffee cup?"But seriously folks--we just do not know much of anything about Jesus' early life. The infancy narratives were added decades after his death, and are not found in the earliest gospel. He could have been married, unmarried, or widowed by the time of his public ministry. It'd be odd to have no mention of a wife in the gospels if he was married. It'd be odd, but not impossible, to be a rabbi and unmarried. And as I mentioned before, Paul, the author of the earliest NT texts, uses himself, not Jesus, as an example of celibate life. Since Paul wasn't ignorant of the stories of Jesus' life, it'd be very odd for him to reference himself instead of Jesus if Jesus was, in fact, a life-long single man. Was Jesus widowed? Seems to be the category most folks simply don't consider. But why not? A wife who died in childbirth, e.g.? What is relevant for us today is how our understanding of Jesus' life affects our understanding of what it means to be his disciple now. Further, what the papyrus would substantiate--if it is genuine--is a plurality of understandings in the early Christian community about Jesus' home life. And, just as with so many other aspects of the tradition, we have tended to assume that only the version we have received ever existed, or ever had theological merit. Not so. And if we're invited by the plurality of opinions (on so many issues) in the early Church to see our tradition as much wider than we may have been taught as children, perhaps we might be gentler with pluralism in the contemporary Church.
Why? The media love the story. Catching out Christians in counterfactuals is a great game. But, of course, scholars may have a genuine interest in the matter.---Agree that media, including Commonweal, love the story. (How many threads have there been on it? How many comments?)Agree that scholars may/should have a genuine interest in the matter. What I find odd, however, is that some "scholars", including those you met with last night, could arrive at a consensus that the papyrus is a forgery, even though they haven't seen it, handled it, examined it, etc.The scholars Karen King called in, "who spent hours analyzing the papyrus and the ink" " concluded that it was authentic and probably fourth century."http://www.npr.org/2012/09/19/161387617/text-reignites-debate-did-jesus-...
Thanks to M.M @L.Fulham for an inspiration: the year of J.Baptist execution, Paul's celibacy example.Luke 14:[email protected] -nor in others gospels.Why? Would it be a pre-Luke tradition that Jesus renounced personally from own experience his own family ties? Contra: Nazareth'sscene,Mk6:1nn(@parallels) does not mention anything on his wife? Normal?Anyway, Mk 1:4.9 proves that Jesus after his conversion started a Mission like [email protected] celibates died as a political rebel: "The king of Jews", but was resurrected @is alive .Alleluja!ps. I see some scholars here: can you check somewhere (libraries) the historical reports on riots at the past at H.Masses regarding 1Cor 11:26.Why? Jan 27, A.D.2001 at Domaniewska 20, Warsaw I was attacked after an Echo: the witness of the Word (from the liturgy day)@ the celebrant fell at the [email protected] not finish the mass; he was taken to Emergency Room.Unfortunately he recovered @went to Police (Warsaw-Mokotow)...art.195.1 Polish criminal code(disturbing liturgy). For some mysterious reasons the Judge (Warsaw,Mokotow District) cancelled the case though it should be finished this year: 10 years formal procedure @the warrant to arrest me when crossing the border).It refers to 1 million Neocatechumenat movement; it took me 2 years to discover it is a...sect!!! Anyway: the Event at liturgy is a....natural or supernatural? Greetings from NeoGalliean fighter/anti-Nazi-Communist descendant (J7:52)
Most of you don't seem to take the fully himan aspect of Jesus' nature very seriously. He's supposed to be like us in every way except for sin. Why would Jesus being married have made him a bad husband/father when that seems to be the life the disciples lived too, as well as itinerant rabbis? He had all the other types of human relationships, including loving friendships, and we don't ask how anyone could have managed to be God's friend. It almost seems that what really bothers people is that Jesus might have had a romantic/sexual relationship.
The term "naysayers" is a bit dramatic. Skeptics is probably better. You are strangely quite on the defensive for the authenticity of the text.1) First of all, authenticity stems from the weight of all the combined evidence, so you can't go through each argument against authenticity and shoot them down. The Greek fragments of Thomas basically repeat what was later found in Egypt. And they don't make claims about Jesus' wife. And they pass other tests for authenticity. That this new text looks like a pastiche of other texts is quite striking. A fragment that reveals and conceals but just happens to reveal what this Da Vinci Code generation wants to know? 2) Hime is not uncommon. It's found in several dialects. What's strange is how clear the words are. Often in papyri the words or section you really want to read were lost long ago. We're very lucky here. Why would a forger use a "supposedly" less common word not found in Thomas? Well, obviously to accomplish the goal of the forgery, to introduce the idea of Jesus' wife.3) On ethos, do you know people like Stephen Emmel? He thinks it looks less than genuine.Have a look at what some other papyrologists have said: http://alinsuciu.com/2012/09/26/on-the-so-called-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-s...
To Abe J: Thanks for a link. Jesus had a "wife" or not- a similar problem in 2Cor 12:7 "thorn"- what does it mean? A conscience scrupulousness of Paul (on past persecuting Christians) or internal enemies called "dogs" (Phil 3:2)? Scholars are divided. From personal experience I prefer the second answer: enemies- dogs.
"So why compare this forgery to the Gospel of Thomas...?"A.M.D.We'll soon find out. That's the great thing about scholarship. Scholars won't be negligent about this. King will have to ride out the storm or gale as it were. My hunch is that she believes she is on to something, thence the impatience, the discontent (that won't be the ruin of her career). And if she is wrong, well, she can always repent, repent forever.
I've read that Tertullian said that Paul had been castrated, and that was the thorn. I say it's none of anybody else's business.
Dear Abe Johnson, 1. I think all the Coptic scholars commenting on this are skeptics, including me. I haven't heard anyone in the scholarly community act like a "true believer," and I'm certainly not trying to act that way. Rather, I was pushing back against what emerged as a sudden wave of apparent consensus, based on Francis Watson's argument. The papyrus may be a forgery, but I don't think demonstrations of its overlap with Thomas are the way that will be proven. My point about bringing up the P.Oxy. Greek fragments of Jesus' sayings was because though "basically" the same, as you say, they are different on details at many points (e.g., logia 2, 5, 30, 36). My point is merely that we have other real ancient fragments that look a lot like Coptic Thomas but not exactly like Coptic Thomas. 2. I guess we see this "hime" evidence differently. I think it's more likely that a forger would use the most common form of the word if it's the word that he or she wants to be recognized right away. But I don't claim to have much knowledge about the psychology of modern forgery. 3. Yes, I know Stephen Emmel, and many of the other people cited in news stories. Emmel and Funk are just two of the giants of Coptic studies who are suspicious of the text. Several of us younger scholars active in the discussion met at the first summer Coptic papyrology event in 2006 in Vienna. And yes, Alin Suciu is another young expert hot on the trail of this discovery. I'm been much more persuaded by arguments related to paleography than I have been by those related to content. And yet, there are lots of magical papyri from Coptic Egypt with unusual, semi-trained handwriting. This fragment, if authentic, could fit in that genre, with the "let a wicked man swell..." as in "grow tumors" and die. These kinds of curses are found in magical papyri, which were written on the whole by less formal "hands." Overall, I'm not a true believer, and I have no stake professionally, and certainly not spiritually, in this. But nor was I persuaded by the "it's a pastiche of Thomas" argument that seems for the time being to have won the day.
I really enjoy all the theory debunking and conspiracy weaving when something new like Karen Kings papyrus fragment. Its necessary and proper. I just wish that it wasnt so initially jaundiced. We need the debates because the myths surrounding Jesus, his life and ministry, need to be deconstructed anew if Christians are ever to free Jesus and the Spirit from the spent derived ideology sourced in orthodoxy.Im still amazed that Kings papyrus fragment may have been sliced into small bits in order to increase its price, and presumably other fragments, on the antiquities market. Right there is a big credibility problem for me.I do favor a vigorous debate about the position and role of Mary Magdalene in the primitive beginnings of the Christian faith. Her ambiguous appearance(s) in the NT only beg more questions and speculations. Whatever her true identity and relationship to Jesus are critical if future Christians will ever be able to put new flesh on old bones. Kings papyrus is yet another opportunity to look at familiar narratives with new eyes perhaps revealing new trajectories in our understanding of the earliest Christian communities.For instance: This past Holy Week, CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment on art historian Thomas de Wesselows The Sign which ably argues that the famous Shroud of Turin with its ghostly images of a crucified man could be seen as the very source of the seminal beliefs in the Resurrection [especially the Shroud can ever be truly authenticated, and its chain of custody unravelled].The rise of a cult centered on a belief in the Resurrection is what gave birth to the church. If Jesus is not raised, then our faith is in vain. (1 Cor 15:14) Whatever is the ultimate significance of this artifact, de Wesselows novel consideration of the Shroud as an art object enables him to enrich new interpretations of Mary Magdalenes role at the empty tomb, and ultimately in the proto-Christian community.If these new inquiries, new archeology are encouraged and given ample consideration, then we may have stumbled upon new support, new sparks for renewed faith and practice at a time when both are diminishing, if not virtually extinguished.
I don't believe King presented this well. She should have waited until others examined the fragment, esp. ink analyses. Calling it the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" is tabloid scholarship at its best (or worst). Nothing in the text warrants that title or the assumption of a "gospel" genre. At the end of the day I think far too many people attempting to recover "lost Christianities" have hidden but giant theological agendas (no matter how sober and objective they claim to be) and really have giant misconceptions about ancient (so-called) "catholic" theology--this is especially true for the issue of Christ's humanity in early Christianity.1. Other "editions" or other copies of ancient texts may look similar, but they contain enough differences to warrant the claim that an ancient scribe wrote them independently or at least deliberately deviated from an earlier copy. This fragment is thoroughly dependent on Thomas.2. Again, hime is not uncommon. I've seen both spellings in the same document (and in different kinds of documents for that matter).3. Emmel and Suciu doubt the authenticity of the fragment based on paleography, among other things.Yes, a lot of strange hands can be found in magical papyri, Greek and Coptic. But none like this, and few, if any, with real concern about Jesus' marital status. Some Gnostic or apocryphal texts speculate on bridal chambers and rituals which signify spiritual realities. See Suciu's latest post on the strange syntax of the line you quoted (let a wicked man swell up). On whether the pastiche argument is persuasive, it depends on whom you place the burden of proof. You can't assume the authenticity of the text and wait for others to disprove it. If you want to argue that it is something more than a mere pastiche drawn of Thomas drawn by a modern amateur, you have to prove that another explanation accounts for its existence.
As Jesus was dying on the cross he addressed both his mother Mary and John his apostle by saying Mother behold your son referring to John and John behold your mother referring to Mary. He made no mention of a wife, Mary Magdalene was there also.It is inconceivable that had there been a wife he would not have asked his mother or John or both to look after her. Or would he not have asked his wife to look after his mother?Some 400 years after Jesus's death and resurrection an unknown scribe attributes the word 'wife' to Jesus on a bit of papyrus and academics and quasi-biblical scholars are off and running to answer the 'was He ' or 'wasn't He" married. For all practical purposes and logical thought Jesus answered that question Himself from the cross.
On Matthew 19:12 by H.Wansbrough O.S.B in : A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, ed.R.Fuller, Nelson, London, 1969- it would support my recent post: Jesus after his conversion (Mk 1:[email protected]) quit ALL family ties inc.a wife (@child?- Talpiot tomb) to live a celibacy like Jeremiah, [email protected] ps. the priest, R.C who hit me at riots at H.Mass (Fr.Zyzniewski,the pastor of Parish but not a celebrant is already dead as I warned him)

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About Adidas
Belts are a great way to add style to your outfit and are good for just holding up your pants. Discount Golf World has a variety of different belt brands, Nike included. We also carry Bill Adler, Callaway, and Adidas. We have a great selection of colors and sizes so you are sure to find a belt you will love!
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Is Teen Pregnancy Trendy? Teen Moms Take on Pop Culture
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Home > Food > Recipes > Banana Buttermilk Pancakes
Banana Buttermilk Pancakes
Categories: Low-fat
Type: Breakfast
Type: Breakfast
The banana flavor in these buttermilk pancakes is incredible.
Serves: 15 pancakes (1 pancake per serving)
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 3/4 cups nonfat or low-fat buttermilk
- 1/4 cup fat-free egg substitute, or 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
- 1 1/2 cups sliced banana (about 1 1/2 medium)
- 1/4 cup honey crunch wheat germ or chopped toasted pecans
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- Place the flour, sugar, and baking soda in a medium-sized bowl, and stir to mix well. Add the buttermilk and egg substitute or egg whites, and stir to mix well. Fold in the banana and wheat germ or pecans.
- Coat a griddle or large skillet with nonstick cooking spray, and preheat over medium heat until a drop of water sizzles when it hits the heated surface. (If using an electric griddle, heat the griddle according to the manufacturer's directions.)
- For each pancake, pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle, and spread into a 4-inch circle. Cook for about 1 minute and 30 seconds, or until the top is bubbly and the edges are dry. Turn and cook for an additional minute, or until the second side is golden brown. As the pancakes are done, transfer them to a serving plate and keep warm in a preheated oven.
- Serve hot, topped with honey or maple syrup.
- To make Banana Buckwheat Pancakes, substitute 3/4 cup of buckwheat flour for 3/4 cup of the whole wheat pastry flour.
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I have big dreams of writing the next Facebook (unrealistic I know) and I'm in the planning stages as we speak and I'm umming and ahing about using a php framework for this and how many development hours it would actually save me. If any? Also is it unrealistic for one person to hand code an entire social network solo? Whats the largest application anyone has written on their own? I should also point out that I have a day job, so late nights and evenings it is. And pregnant partners to deal with :)
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closed as primarily opinion-based by Robert Harvey, Bart van Ingen Schenau, MichaelT, GlenH7, Snowman Nov 4 '15 at 19:46
Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
Somehow, I think writing a webapp is not the main concern.
Much more important is thinking about how to make the damn thing gain traction.
Other than that, your question doesn't probably make a lot of sense. Writing something as complex and big as Facebook is not something you can do all by yourself, and I am pretty sure that nobody has the resources to start out that big anyway, even without a day job and offspring and stuff.
My instinct on this is no - simply because you said the "next Facebook" and the nature of a social network is many, many users. If you were putting together a team to do this, and you hired a CTO worth anything at all, and you asked what PHP framework (if any) should be used, he'd tell you to back up and consider what language should even be used. The language must be:
If you are going to need scale like this, it's unlikely that any framework is going to help you unless it's already an open-source social network platform (maybe), or you plan on just dumping it and rewriting everything as soon as you've got a few hundred thousand users.
But, what exactly does "an entire social network mean"? What features is it going to have? The original Facebook was obviously easy enough to write by a single person. But what it has now has been developed by teams of hundreds of developers for years:
Impossible to know, but I guarantee if they did any good at it, they weren't on their own for long. If you are successful, then you're going to need more hands to continue building.
Good luck :)
Writing a functional social network that people would actually want to use would require many many thousands of hours. Probably 10,000 At minimum.
Having 5 programmers work full time for 1 year would consume 10,000 man hours. Facebook for example most likely required many more times that for its first two years of operation.
So practically whatsisname's man hour number is right, if maybe even a little low. Facebook, according to Wikipedia:
A lot of man hours has gone into the Facebook as you see it.
Having said that, two things:
To get a recent example of a social network creation effort, you should have a look at the Diaspora social network project, which is an open source, decentralized, privacy friendly social network.
Regarding the man-hour aspect, I think they have started around May, last year and have just reached the Alpha stage, with 4 core developers and 200,000 US $ of donation. You can even have a look at their work on Github and see the number of active contributors.
Only counting 4 core developers they have probably already invested at least 7,000 man-hours and they are far from completion so I think whatisname's estimation of 10,000 man-hours sounds reasonable to get something basic, by today standard, working.
And they are also trying to be The Next Facebook.
If I were going to write the next social network, I would begin by considering not using server side code at all. I would do it in HTML5 and only invite people who are clever enough to use browsers that can interpret it fully.
If you write the script to the sequel to the Social Network, please include the part where I sued you for taking this idea that I gave you on programmers.SE and you gave me an undisclosed amount of money in excess of 65 million dollars.
Oops, forgot to answer the question.
That'll take you about a week and there are no security concerns at all.
Writing a chat site and declaring it social network isn't difficult nor much coding effort. Hundreds of programmers are doing that right now, and all will fail to gain traction no matter how many features are coded in or how stylish it looks.
There is no user base to gain unless you can build a robust technical and usability interface to Facebook. That's a coding effort few are capable of, and some fail on proxy implementation willingness (Diaspora) to create a factual social network.
Btw, there might be easier target groups than Facebook users. (Though I'm probably not entitled to comment, since I have it cached in /etc/hosts as 127.0.0.5 ever since those tracking buttons appeared.)


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I Have been demoing PTGUI and AutoPano. I have been using Hugin for a while. I'm also demoing Pano2VR.
I am new to 360 panos and I have a problem that I thought you might be able to help with. My goal is to create 360 HDR VR panos.
I'm using a canon 1d MKIII and a Tokina 10-17 fisheye set at 12mm on a NN 5. I shot 3 bracked images for each position.
My problem is that I have only found one way to do this and get a 360 VR that does not have a vertical seem where the two ends of the pano meet. If I use PTGui to stitch and do the HDR tone mapping there is no seem if I choose a Spherical 360x180 projection.
However if I ask PTGui to output the non-tonemapped hdr file and tone map the file in Photomatix I get a seem where the ends of the pano meet.
Also AutoPano's hdr output has a seem no matter what as does Hugin's. Seems like even the LDR panos I create with autopano or hugin have this seem. If I choose the 360x180 projection in PTgui there is no seem.
I woudl really like to be able to use Photomatix to tone map my HDR images as I have been using it for some time and I really like their interface and result.
So Am I stuck, do i have to blend this seem in photoshop?


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Question: Let $S$ be a convex weakly compact set in Banach space $H$. Propose a natural way to define the unique center $O \in S$.
Motivation: A lot! For example, in game theory $S$ can be a set of possible (fair) allocations, and we need to suggest a natural method to choose one.
Discussion. If S consists of 2 points, or line in $\mathbb R^2$, we have no natural way to select a center, thus $S$ should be convex and weakly compact. To define these properties, we need vector space and topology, thus the natural setting is Bahach space. If $H$ is $\mathbb R^n$, the natural choice is centroid (center mass), but to define it for general case, we need a natural notion of "uniform density" in a Banach space. Is this someting standard which I do not know? My main example is $H = L^1$, space of all intergable functions $[0,1]\to \mathbb R$. In this case if $S$ consists of all functions with range in $[a,b]$, the center should naturally be a constant function $f(x)\equiv (a+b)/2$. Also, $O$ should be tractable to compute, at least for such a simple examples of $H$ and $S$. A good axiomatic foundation ($O$ is the unique point saisfying axioms A1, A2, and A3) would be a plus.


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You can see my site here. The share buttons on the left side obviously look quite untidy... Any ideas on how to make them look better?
An easy way to make them better is to get rid of most of them. Large sites with lots of visitors see Twitter/Facebook in use but not a lot else.
Don't bother with the StumbleUpon buttons because SU people have their little toolbar and are in the habit of using the toolbar for that. Same goes for any other link - people don't click them.
Also consider usability. The buttons need to be in some logical place on the content, not thrown on the page to look like you are all modern what-with-your-Facebook-button-n'all. People expect navigation on the left, you have to go with their expectations. In the top-right is no good either - people will not go looking in blindspots for the 'twitter button'. If you are selling products then by the 'add to cart' button is a good idea as people will maybe think of checking with their other half/friend on some purchase that they may not be immediately wanting to buy.
As they stand now, a simple tweak would be to make them uniformly sized and aligned with each other. Here's how they look with guides visible and gutters highlighted in red-yellow:
You could also add a background around them to make them appear as a cohesive page element and may want to consider using reworked icons that better fit your theme. Some links for inspiration are at the end of this answer.
One of my favorite integrations of social icons is at DanielMarques.me. His site looks like a bookshelf and his icons look like they're sitting on the shelf:
Inspirations: http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/55-examples-of-beautifully-integrated-social-media-links-in-web-design Icon sets: http://speckyboy.com/2009/01/26/30-amazingly-creative-social-bookmarks-icon-sets/


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February 21, 2013
Intaka Island – protecting Cape Town's wetlands and birds
The beautiful, 16ha wetland and bird sanctuary Intaka Island is situated in the heart of Century City, just 7km from Cape Town's city centre.
Intaka – the Xhosa word for "bird" – is an example of the mutual benefits that can occur when there is co-existence between nature conservation and property development. Being a wetland that is home to a multitude of rare and popular birds and spectacular flora, Intaka offers more than just a place to see – it is also a place where one can just be.
Get in touch with nature and take some time off from the busy lifestyle of the city. Wander the sanctuary and observe the exquisite simplicity of Mother Nature.
In 1996, when the development of Century City began, the 250ha area was covered in invasive alien vegetation and degraded wetlands, which are used by a large number of birds as breeding sites. This prompted the completion of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) prior to development proceeding, to protect the wildlife there.
In an effort to contribute to conservation and create an attractive wetland, it was recommended that a multi-purpose nature reserve be built in the centre of Century City. As a result of these efforts Intaka Island was developed – a representation of a distinctively successful union of conservation and property development.
Intaka's environmental manager, Alan Liebenberg, explains that the island's role in its conservation efforts is split into three functions: "Firstly, Intaka Island uses the surrounding wetlands like a closed, water-purifying system for the 7km-long canal network of Century City. Secondly, it helps to maintain the breeding and roosting site of the birds in the wetlands."
"Lastly, 8ha of the area consists of rare vegetation only found in Cape Town, the sand plain fynbos. This vegetation is critically endangered, with less than one percent of it being conserved."
With the increasing demands growing populations place on the our planet's limited resources, it has become important to expose the world to concepts such as sustainability, ecosystems and biodiversity.
Intaka Island and its own Education Centre do exactly that, providing visitors with the opportunity to have an environmental learning experience, naturally.
Visitors reach the island via a bridge across the circular canal. A family ticket (two adults and three children) costs R20, adults pay R8, children and pensioners pay R4.


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The login process to my Ubuntu box takes a long time, maybe a minute or longer.
Unlike the bootstrap which prints a lot of messages to the console, there is nothing displayed when GUI started.
I've checked
/var/log/Xorg.0.log and
/var/log/Xorg.1.log, most of them are a bit of lower level information about display devices, seem like things happened before the login, and nothing related to startup applications.
Any idea?


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The Alison Rules (Library Binding)
Special Order -- Email or Call for Availability
What is It About Alison?
For one thing, she has rules:
- When stealing a rowboat, ALWAYS check that the oars are the same length, so you don't go in circles.
- In reference to your best friend's crush, KEEP your feelings to yourself.
- NEVER use your locker if that's where you were standing when told the very worst news of all.
But rules -- like hearts -- are meant to be broken.
From Catherine Clark, author of Frozen Rodeo, comes a profound story of friendship, love, and loss.
About the Author
Catherine Clark is the author of Picture Perfect, Wish You Were Here, So Inn Love, The Alison Rules, and many others. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


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Over the last 15 years I have worked as a professional musician, mostly as a percussionist. I have done many jobs with different artists and solo. I have reached the highest point that every musician would like to achieve.
But since a year ago I have no job. Nobody calls me to play or record.
Maybe I'm not as good a musician as I thought.
You see this as a personal failure? What would you do in a similar situation?


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P.LOFT Youth Hostel
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These are trusted reviews from guests who have actually stayed here. We hope you find them helpful.
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- " This hostel is in a great location (although difficult to find the first time). That was the reason that we chose this hostel. The problems were that the staff was incredibly rude (in English and Chinese). When asked if they would clean up beer cans off the tables, they said no. Breakfast is served too late at 8am. We stayed in private rooms and could hear the people near us because there were cracks in the walls. Dirty rooms. The beds had springs coming out of the mattresses. Dirty bathrooms. "
- 02 May 2012 Megan


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All images are copyright to the photographer and/or the Antarctica NZ Pictorial Collection and may not be used without permission. Please contact us for conditions of use.
Most of the images in this gallery are from the Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE) of 1956-58. For more information about the expedition, the International Geophysical Year (IGY) and the building of Scott Base, go to our 50th anniversary website.


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President to Halve Afghan Force in Next Year
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama has decided to cut the size of the American force in Afghanistan by half over the next year, in an acceleration of the U.S. departure.
State of the Union
Mr. Obama, who announced the plan in his State of the Union address Tuesday, will order a reduction in the troop levels by 34,000, from the total of 66,000 American troops now, by this time next year.
The plan represents the first time the administration has spelled out the rate of troop reductions under a new strategy, and signals a speedier withdrawal than military commanders initially recommended. But defense officials said commanders have signed off on the plans, satisfied that a planned shift to a strategy focused on training Afghan forces would allow for an accelerated drawdown.
The move will reduce troop numbers to about the same level as when Mr. Obama took office in 2009. He ordered a buildup that increased U.S. forces to more than 100,000, many sent as part of a surge that ended last year.
A final decision has yet to be made on the size of a post-2014 U.S. troop presence, officials said, with the level likely to range up to 9,000.
Related Video
Mr. Obama, in his address, did not spell out post-2014 troop levels, but said the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan would continue, though changed. The administration is seeking an agreement with the Afghan government, he said, that allows the U.S. to pursue extremists and train the country's military to ensure that Afghanistan "does not again slip into chaos."
Gen. John Allen, the former top commander in Afghanistan, originally hoped to keep the current troop levels through the end of the fighting season in the fall. Mr. Obama's decision last month to shift more quickly to an emphasis on training Afghan security forces—and conducting fewer joint military operations—has eased the need for high levels of troops, officials said.
"Afghan forces are leading nearly 90% of operations across the country, and by this spring, they'll be assuming the lead across the entire country," said a senior administration official, with the U.S. in a training and assisting role.
Some Afghan officials and analysts, who favor a larger U.S. presence, saw the drawdown plan as misguided and called for a quick decision on troop levels after 2014.
"This accelerated drawdown of troops in 2013 will be very unhelpful and will have far-reaching negative consequences for the growth of Afghan security forces," said Hanif Atmar, an opposition leader and former interior minister, citing adverse effects on this year's fighting season and elections planned in 2014. "This decision runs against the advice of top NATO and Afghan generals."
Daoud Sultanzoy, a former parliamentarian who hosts a popular talk show, called the move "a typical Western response for a Western audience without taking into consideration Afghan realities."
"Come 2014, we'll have not only elections but an emboldened insurgency," he said, adding that troop levels next year "will send the wrong signal at the wrong time."
The drawdown plan approved by Mr. Obama would reduce troop levels to 60,500 by May 13 and to 52,500 by Nov. 13. The remainder would leave by mid-February 2014, a senior administration official said.
A senior administration official said this plan allows for "a sizable number of U.S. forces to support the Afghans for two additional fighting seasons before they are fully responsible for their own security" at the beginning of 2015.
Some defense analysts had expected Mr. Obama to announce the number of forces the U.S. intends to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, when the current mission ends.
Officials said reductions would continue after this year and throughout 2014. But the senior administration official said that Mr. Obama had made no decision on the long-term troop level, and would be making no further announcements in his State of the Union address, beyond the cuts to the force this year.
U.S. officials acknowledged that commanders will face a challenge of continuing to train Afghan forces while overseeing the extraction of tons of equipment and thousands of soldiers over the course of the year. But the command in Afghanistan has put in place plans to speed the withdrawal while continuing training, a defense official said.
Mr. Obama has said the mission of any forces remaining after 2014 will be limited to targeting the remnants of al Qaeda and high-level training of the Afghan security force. The U.S. is continuing to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the Afghans.
Although military officers had been advocating as many as 15,000 forces to remain long term, many senior administration officials favor a much smaller force, of between 3,000 and 6,000, officials said.
Defense ministers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are due to meet in Brussels later this month to discuss plans for this year's troop reductions. The officials are also likely to talk about how many troops they may contribute to Afghanistan after 2014.
—Maria Abi-Habib in Kabul
contributed to this article.
Write to Adam Entous at firstname.lastname@example.com and Julian E. Barnes at firstname.lastname@example.com


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|Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services
U.S. Department of Justice
Training Course: CORE DEC—Drug Endangered Children Awareness Training
Mode of Delivery: Classroom and Web-based (Online)
Training Provider: National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children and the network of State Alliances
Target Audience: Law Enforcement and community partners
Course Description: Originally developed with 2007 COPS Methamphetamine Initiative funding, the Core DEC Training Curriculum will increase community awareness about the risks faced by drug endangered children (DEC) and highlight the opportunities we have to intervene on behalf of these children.
For additional information on this course: www.nationaldec.org
Training Course: One on One: Connecting Cops & Kids
Mode of Delivery: Classroom
Training Provider: The Fred Rogers Company
Target Audience: Law Enforcement Officers and Youth Serving Service Providers
Course Description: One-on-One is a four-part video-based training program to
help law enforcement officers increase their effectiveness and safety by building trust with children and teenagers. One-on-One provokes discussion and raises officers' awareness of children in their work and of the tremendous impact their presence, authority and actions have on children. It is also designed to show how basic knowledge of children and their development can enhance an officer's impact, safety and ability to achieve law enforcement goals in the community. The Fred Rogers Company will be taking One on One to police departments around the country during 2011 and 2012 as part of an initiative funded by the US Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.
For additional information on this course: http://www.fredrogers.org/cops/index.html
Training Course: T.A.P.S. Academy
Mode of Delivery: Classroom
Training Provider: Houston Police Department
Target Audience: Law Enforcement and Targeted At-Risk Youth
Course Description: The Teen and Police Service Academy (T.A.P.S.) academy is a concept to reduce the social distance between at-risk youth and law enforcement. Through learning, interaction, focus groups, discussions, community problem solving and a service-learning instruction, the student and law enforcement officers will gain valuable insight about the concerns and issues facing one another. Students and law enforcement will explore issues surrounding violence, physical and sexual abuse, stalking, domestic trafficking, sexual exploitation and bullying in a 15 week training curriculum. The curriculum and program developed through this program is intended to reduce the social distance that exists between police and youth, educate youth and police about each other, while providing crime prevention projects to the community through the use of service-learning.
For additional information on this course: www.houstonpolice.org | Video on T.A.P.S


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ANDERSON, S.C. – Anderson University head softball coach Tommy Hewitt has announced that, due to unplayable field conditions, the Saturday afternoon doubleheader at Brewton-Parker has been cancelled and will not be rescheduled.
The Trojans are slated to open a six-game road swing at Fort Valley State University on Sunday. First-pitch from middle Georgia is set for 1 p.m.


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I am not sure whether this question is appropriate for this forum. But still I would share my reason for posting it.
During official meetings (and even shouting matches and arguments) to substantiate our point we need to put our point across. And quite often, the talk veers to such a direction where you are suddenly speechless - even though you know the right response to it. And being speechless, we fail to put our point across and are over-ruled. And later, we realize "Oh! I should have said that in response to that and my argument was perfectly valid then. Why didn't it strike me then #facepalm (happens with me quite a lot!)
It has something to do with the ability to "think on your feet". In other words, I mean to say like "I skip/inadvertently forget a lot of relevant things I know when its time to discuss/talk about it. What can I do for this? How can I improve this skill?
Apologies if my question is not fit enough.


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Made of 100% Polyester Plush. Includes Kitty applique and 3D Bow. Elastic back with Velcro closure in front. Measures approximately 23" in length. Turn inside out and machine wash cold. Wash separately or with like colors. Gentle cycle only. Non-chlorine bleach when needed. Tumble dry low. Do not iron. Sizes run as follows: Small (3-5), Medium (7), Large (9) and X-Large (11-13).
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8 Creepy Video Game Urban Legends (That Happen to Be True)
#4. EarthBound -- All About Abortion
For most people, their only experience with EarthBound (also known as Mother 2 in Japan) is the characters and levels that also appear in the Super Smash Bros. games: little kids with bats and yo-yos in bright, colorful environments. And that's a pretty accurate representation of about 95 percent of the game, where you run around with four little kids who are trying to save the world by fighting things like bugs and robots and taxicabs.
Via Wikipedia
It's like Pokemon, but less flashy.
But the last hour of the game is something really different from everything that comes before it. First the kids have their souls ripped from their bodies and put into robots. When you finally reach the final boss, Giygas, an evil alien entity who is trying to destroy the world, things start to take a turn for the truly disturbing.
Via screwattack.com
Take a look at Giygas' lair, The Devil Machine.
The middle part looks remarkably like an endoscopic image of a woman's cervix. As we'll see, that isn't an accident. When you fight Giygas, he starts out looking like this:
And ends up looking like this:
First a cervix and now something that looks like an Andy Warhol painting of a fetus. What could all of this possibly mean? The commonly accepted theory is that, in order to defeat the evil alien, the characters travel in time to the point where it's at its weakest: that is, as a fetus. So basically, Ness and his friends are performing a stylized abortion. In a game originally called Mother.
But this has to be a creepy accident, right? Not really. Shigesato Itoi, the game's creator, has said in interviews that he based the Giygas fight on a traumatic childhood experience: He accidentally walked into the wrong theater at the movies and witnessed a murder scene from the Japanese film The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty (yes, that's a thing). As if that didn't sound horrible enough, Itoi thought he was watching a rape and was deeply affected by it.
Via Wikimedia Commons
Seriously, Japan. What are we going to do with you?
Apparently, Itoi decided to work out his childhood trauma by including something equally disturbing in a Nintendo game ... thus traumatizing millions of other kids.
#3. Braid -- The Girl Is an Atomic Bomb
On the surface, the critically acclaimed indie hit Braid is a straightforward platformer like so many 8- and 16-bit era games. You play Tim, a dude who can reverse time and uses his powers to find a missing princess, Mario-style. But the simplistic gameplay is deceptive; the symbolic and ambiguous ending hints at a larger, stranger story (SPOILER: The "princess" you're trying to rescue isn't exactly happy to see you). And beyond that, Braid has a creepy secret that you couldn't possibly find unless you're psychic. Or, y'know, someone just tells you about it. Whichever.
Psychics make up a pretty substantial chunk of the indie gaming demographic, eclipsed only by "people with mohawks."
Hidden throughout the game's five worlds are seven secret stars. The game doesn't give you any acknowledgment that they're even there -- no achievements, no hints, no clues, nothing. You can get through the whole game without even knowing they exist, and even if you know what you're after, they're exceptionally difficult to find and obtain. One star requires waiting in a screen for two hours just to get to it, and another can't be acquired if you've already completed the second world.
If you've got more free time than wisdom, feel free to try this for yourself.
So what happens after you gather the seven stars? Nothing, at first. If you return to the game's final level, however, there's a slight difference.
As we mentioned, the level is pretty trippy to begin with: At first it looks like you're helping the princess escape from a bad guy, but then it turns out you're watching the situation in reverse and she's actually escaping from you (apparently, you're a total douche). But play it after you have the hidden stars, and the level is subtly changed in such a way that you can actually catch up to the princess and touch her ... at which point she begins flashing freakishly and you hear the sound of a nuclear bomb detonating.
What the hell?
That's a phrase you say a lot while playing Braid.
So that game with cute enemies, pretty environments and an innocent quest to rescue a princess is apparently all a metaphor for the creation of the atomic bomb; or, more specifically, how its creators possibly wished they could turn back time and undo all the damage. Of course, that's so far removed from this colorful run-and-jump game that it really proves how out-there some of these conspiracy nuts are.
Oh, wait, did we mention that the game's epilogue features a quote from Kenneth Bainbridge, the head of the Trinity atomic bomb tests?
#2. Microsoft Office 95 -- Hall of Tortured Souls
If you've been on the Internet for longer than five minutes, you're probably aware of the thousands of email forwards and poorly designed Web pages accusing Bill Gates of being the devil, literally. Apparently, the Prince of Darkness has clumsily dropped evidence of his dark secret all over his products: One popular urban legend claims that names like "Bill Gates," "Windows 95" and "MS-DOS 6.21" somehow add up to 666, which is silly, because everyone knows you can't add letters.
Another one says there's something called "The Hall of Tortured Souls" or "The Hall of Lost Souls" hidden inside Word 95; supposedly, it's a creepy first-person game with Doom-like graphics, and if you make it to the end of a narrow path, it will show you "something really, really eerie" or "reveal something about Microsoft." Or both.
That is completely false. There is no creepy game hidden inside Word 95.
It's on Excel 95.
Via eeggs.com
Wait ... what? They put that inside a program used to create spreadsheets?
Yup: If you open a new Excel file, go to Row 95 and follow a few other steps, a new window will pop up on your screen and possibly take 10 years away from your life with the resulting shock. Turns out that "Hall of Tortured Souls" isn't a dramatic nickname people on the Internet invented: It's what the window actually says.
If you're wondering why the sky outside is red, you've never heard of hell before.
The "game" appears to have only two rooms, separated by some stairs: The one with the blue pillars and the green pools, and another with red names raining down a window. That's it. The place is completely deserted except for you, which somehow makes it even creepier. However ... if you type "EXCELKFA" while facing a certain direction, one of the walls will disappear while you're not looking, and behind it you'll see a narrow, very hard-to-cross bridge with something weird at the other end.
Via eeggs.com
You know what? Let's go home.
If you make it to the other side, you'll find what looks like a bizarre other-dimensional re-enactment of the Last Supper:
Via egomania.nu
Now, before you curl up under the bed and start crying -- those are actually the guys who developed Excel 95. Apparently, Microsoft programmers used to do this all the time: There's also a 3D flight simulator in Excel 97 and a racing game in Excel 2000. It's simply a fun way for them to credit their work, because seriously, when was the last time you read the "About" page for a program?
Of course, some people still see this as definite proof that Bill Gates is, in fact, the Antichrist, accusing him of personally putting the game there to ... you know, be all Antichristy and stuff.
"Mwa-ha-ha. My cunning plan to destroy the world through tens of billions of dollars in charitable donations is nearly complete."
#1. Polybius -- The Mind-Destroying Arcade Game
The story of Polybius has all the ingredients of a good urban legend: It's creepy, it's mysterious and teenagers die in it (or are traumatized, at the very least). And it's likely based on truth, at least to some degree. How much? Who knows.
It was in The Simpsons, so it must be true.
According to the legend, Polybius was a game that appeared in a few arcades in Portland, Ore., for a short time in 1981. The cabinet was supposedly completely black (minus the logo), and the game was supposed to be very similar to Atari's shoot 'em up Tempest, except for the addition of Pac-Man-type mazes and logic puzzles, and the fact that it drove people insane. Kids hooked on the game began experiencing side effects like nausea, sleep disturbance and aversion to video games.
"That whole last part? Not good for business, it turns out."
Some sources claim the side effects were more violent: selective amnesia, horrifying nightmares, suicidal tendencies and "the inability to become sad."
"Charlie seems strangely OK with his new suicidal tendencies."
Now here's where it starts to stretch into Alex Jones territory. According to an unnamed arcade owner, men in black coats could be seen collecting data from the machines, leading some to believe that the whole thing was a CIA-type experiment.
Anyway, the only "evidence" of the game's existence, so far, is a screencap of the title screen ...
"Sinnesloschen" translates to either "sense-deletion" or "very large sausage."
... and a black and white photo of the cabinet:
Of course, any serious attempt to search for more information on the game is hindered by the fact that people have started building their own Polybius cabinets and trying to re-create the game based on its descriptions. So, basically, they make it look like something that might give someone a seizure:
Of course, it seems kinda convenient that the story of Polybius surfaced only within the past decade or so, presumably when the people who witnessed the events in the first place all went, "You know that mind-fucking video game from '81? In retrospect, that was rather odd." Obviously, the part about the men in black seems like something made up by someone trying to be creepy on a message board.
Via Sinnesloschen
Boy, the shadow government was really phoning it in back then.
So what's the truth? Well, we know there was a glitchy prototype of Tempest (the game Polybius was supposed to resemble) that caused nausea, and we also know the U.S. government approached Atari to design a special version of one of its games in 1980. Snopes.com, while completely dismissing the legend, claims it could be an updated version of the early '80s rumor that special agents collected information in arcades -- which seems to confirm that the "men in black" sightings go back that long.
Wait, what was that about amnesia ...?
To read more of Ashe's work, check out weirdshitblog.com or badmetaphors.wordpress.com.
Maxwell Yezpitelok lives in Chile and does stupid comics, some of which have recently been published in Informe Meteoro, a new independent comics anthology that you can buy.
For more on video games, check out 9 Video Game Easter Eggs That Took Years to Find and 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted.


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A man who led state police on a chase this morning is now behind bars. the pursuit began in Nashville and ended in Simpson County, forcing the interstate to be shut down for a while.
Law enforcement agencies on land and in the sky take part in a morning pursuit.
Herman Hall, a Kentucky State Police trooper, says, "The U.S. Marshall's fugitive unit got in pursuit of a wanted person from out on Tennessee."
Kentucky State Police got word of the pursuit through the Tennessee Highway Patrol. they were told the chase was heading northbound on Interstate 65. Tennessee Highway Patrol laid spike strips on the Tennessee side of the border, but the chase continued, leading officials all the way to Kentucky where the chase eventually ended."
Police say Robert Charles Johnson continued to drive even with two flat tires. He exited I-65 at the Whit House, Tennessee exit and continued north on 31-W into Kentucky.
Crys Ivory, a witness, says, "This morning I saw about13 cars (that's what I counted) chasing a big maroon Dodge truck."
Tennessee Highway Patrol also says shots were fired during the pursuit but did not say whether the shots came from or were directed at Johnson. It was something workers at this Franklin gas station were unaccustomed to.
Ivory says, "All out business stopped for a minute. All of the customers, workers, and everybody were looking out the window. About two or three hours after that, that's still all you were hearing about."
After passing the gas station Johnson then re-entered Interstate 65 at Exit 2 in Simpson County. Troopers then attempted to stop Johnson by forcing him off the road.
Hall says, "The vehicle struck one of our troopers vehicles and subsequently wrecked after that."
Johnson was taken to the Medical Center at Franklin with minor injuries. Kentucky State Police say he will face charges in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Hall says, "He's gonna be looking at several charges of wanton endangerment due to the pursuit and initiating the contact with the troopers car."
Johnson will be lodged in the Simpson County jail until he's extradited back to Tennessee. Kentucky State Police tell us he was also driving a stolen truck.


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Noise Nuisance
We will only usually investigate a noise nuisance complaint where a resident living within the Birmingham boundary is affected. We do not investigate noise problems affecting commercial addresses. For example we are unable to investigate when noise from busking is reported by commercial premises (offices, shops, hotels etc.)
If you are suffering from noise nuisance we advise you to try and resolve the matter informally by speaking to, or sending a note to your neighbour about the problem you are experiencing. This approach often resolves the matter, improves neighbour relations and provides a more long term solution.
Please ensure when completing the form that you select the type of noise from the drop down list. It is very important that you only select "Behaviour Noise (e.g., people shouting or banging doors etc)" if that is the only or main issue. If the main issue is something else but there is also door banging and shouting please select the most appropriate issue type.
If you wish to complaint about noise from roadworks carried out by Birmingham City Council or Amey please complete a highways service specific enquiry
We also provide loudspeaker consents. If you would like to apply for a loudspeaker consent, please visit our loudspeaker consent scheme page.
- How we investigate Noise Nuisance
If you have reported a problem with noise, an officer will contact you shortly to discuss the problem and they may ask you to complete a noise record form (see attachments below), in the form of a diary, for a period of time.
A noise record form will help us to identify how long the noise goes on for and what effect it has on you and enjoyment of your home life. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website provides useful information on noise including a downloadable booklet 'Bothered by Noise?' (see attachment below), which offers important advice on dealing with noise problems.
We try to resolve noise problems informally where possible and initially we may contact the person causing the noise to make them aware that complaints have been made.
If the noise persists after an individual has been advised or warned, we will try to gather evidence to prove that the noise complained about is what is termed a 'statutory noise nuisance'. We may try to do this by either personally witnessing the noise or through the use of recording equipment.
If you want us to resolve a noise nuisance for you, and we need to take legal action to do it we may have to disclose your personal details. For example, if we serve a Noise Abatement Notice the person causing the noise nuisance will have a right to know who made the complaint if they decide to legally appeal against the noise abatement notice in court. Similarly, if a case goes to the court you may be required to give evidence.
In a few cases we can also use evidence given to us by independent third parties who may have witnessed the noise nuisance whilst at your property, for example from Police Officers, other council officials or health service workers.
- Where can I get information about Noise, including Noise Nuisance?
If require further advice or assistance, please contact your Local Environmental Health Office
- Are there any types of noise that the City Council cannot deal with?
We can only take legal action in relation to statutory noise nuisances. We cannot normally take legal action, for example, in relation to transport noise.
- What about controls on noise and dust from construction and demolition sites?
We require all works of construction and demolition to comply with a schedule of conditions (downloadable PDF file).
- What about firework noise?
The Fireworks Regulations Act 2004 placed new restrictions on the use of fireworks.
The ordinary noise nuisance laws are not applicable to firework noise as:
- A 'nuisance in law' must be a continuous state of affairs. A firework event, held maybe once a year for an hour or so, is not ongoing
- Fireworks are often used to celebrate significant cultural or religious ceremonies and this would be the view taken by any court in relation to fireworks used during such periods
- It would be difficult to prove beyond all reasonable doubt (Nuisance law is criminal law) that any one event or person is solely causing the noise problem when there may be scores of similar events in the locality
- Birmingham covers a huge geographical area with thousands of buildings and gardens. To pinpoint which premises is hosting the event (in the dark) from an explosion occurring in the night sky and identifying the person responsible, (which may be different from the owner) is nigh on impossible
- By virtue of the cost of fireworks few firework events last long enough to allow our noise patrol to reach them before they (and the evidence we would need) are over.
- If I have a noise problem, do I have to rely on the council for help?
No. Anyone who believes that they are suffering from a statutory noise nuisance can take their own private civil action against the person causing the noise under Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. To find out more contact a Solicitor or the Citizens Advice Bureau.
- If I make a complaint are my details kept confidential?
Our policy is to keep the personal information that we have about you such as your name and address, confidential.
If you want us to resolve a statutory noise nuisance for you, and we need to take legal action to do it we may have to disclose your personal details. For example, if we serve a Noise Abatement Notice the person causing the noise nuisance will have a right to know who made the complaint if they decide to legally appeal against the Noise Abatement Notice in court. Similarly, if a case goes to the court you may be required to give evidence.
- Is there a noise level set in law?
There are no noise levels set in law. Noise is a subjective assessment; therefore loud music being played from a detached property is unlikely to cause a nuisance whereas the same level of music in a block of flats is likely to cause a nuisance. Environmental health officers are qualified and trained to assess whether a noise is likely to be a statutory nuisance. They are also authorised to take legal action to stop the statutory nuisance.
- If the noise is a statutory noise nuisance what happens next?
If we can prove the noise is a statutory nuisance we are required to take action under Part III of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and this would normally mean serving a Noise Abatement Notice on the person(s) causing the nuisance. This can be the actual person causing the noise or any body who is allowing it to occur, for example the landlord of a property with noisy tenants.
The Abatement Notice would require the statutory nuisance to be stopped and/or prevented from occurring again. If someone is found guilty of failing to comply with an Abatement Notice they can be fined up to a maximum of £5,000 for domestic noise and up to £20,000 for commercial noise. If we serve an abatement notice because of excessively loud music, but the problem continues, we will normally also seize all the sound equipment that is causing the problem.


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Quick Dinner Recipes (Slide 10)
This is probably the worst recipe I have made from this site. I had high hopes, as most things from this site have turned out well. But this was barely edible, and I threw out the copious amount of leftovers because we had no desire to eat it again. The flavors were strange and didn't actually have much taste. The use of pasta was weird in this too, maybe rice noodles would have been better? Either way, we won't be making this again. There are too many other great recipes here to try to waste time trying to fix this one.
— Sherihein
04/04/2014 - 8:11pm


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When one planet passes near another during its trip around the sun, does their gravitational pull is strong enough to disrupt noticeably each other's orbit ?
It does - although the term 'disrupt' may be a bit too strong to describe the effect; personally, I think 'influence' would fit better.
An interesting consequence of such iterations is something called orbital resonance; after long periods of time - and remember that the current estimate for our planet's existence is 4.54 billion years - the ebb and flow of tiny gravitational pulls cause nearby celestial bodies to develop an interlocked behavior. It's a double-edged sword, though; it may de-estabilize a system, or lock it into stability.
Quoting the Wikipedia entry,
Another gravity-related effect (although, as pointed out by Dieudonné, present only on our solar system between bodies that have very close orbits like the Earth-Moon and Sun-Mercury systems) is known as Tidal locking, or captured rotation.
More about orbital resonance on this ASP Conference Series paper: Renu Malhotra, Orbital Resonances and Chaos in the Solar System.
Absolutely yes.
In fact, the planet Neptune was discovered only after differences between the observed and calculated orbit of Uranus became apparent, and astronomers were able to make predictions about the position of the 8th planet that were eventually confirmed via telescopes.
A similar process led to the discovery of the now ex-planet Pluto.
Depends on what you would call noticeable. The perturbations between the planets are quite small and you will only notice them if you either measure the positions of the planets very accurately or over a very long period. So don't expect two planets to suddenly change direction and move towards each other.
These effect are so small because planets don't actually get very near to each other. If they did then their orbits would be very unstable. If any such planet existed then they would have collided or been ejected from the solar system long ago.
Of course, if you want to calculate accurate positions then you will have to take these effects into account.
Indeed it was the perturbations of Uranus's orbit that led to the discovery of Neptune - which was itself a major triumph of the scientific process and the mathematician Le Verrier is often credited with the discovery even though he did not actually make the observational discovery.
Yes it does, especially with the gas giants.
Jupiter's magnetic field is so strong it yanks on almost everything in the Solar System. Life on Earth also relies on the Jovian magnetic field, because if Jupiter's magnetic field was not there, the gravity would feel much weaker.
After the discovery of Uranus, astronomers predicted another gas giant beyond Uranus due to Uranus being yanked on by something large, which led to the discovery of Neptune by Urbain Le Verrier and John Galle in September 1846.
The Saturnian magnetic field primarily affects Uranus and Neptune.


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Nike Woodside II High Men's Boots
Buy Online & Pick Up In-Store
The Nike Woodside II High Men's Boots are ready to take on the outdoors. The men's boots feature a rubber outsole with lug tread to keep you from slipping, while the synthetic leather and rubber upper offers goes higher up your leg for serious protection from the elements. The Nike high boots have a classic silhouette that's easy to wear.


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Bat Battle: Who's The Best Movie Batman?
Michael Keaton. Christian Bale. Val Kilmer. George Clooney. Even, yes, Adam West (he did a Batman film during the TV show's run). All of them have donned the bat-ears, the billowy cape, and the pointy gloves for one movie or another, to varying levels of success. Some became fan favorites; others, The Batmen We Do Not Speak Of.
We've gone back through all the batfilms and watched them exhaustively-even Batman & Robin, so that should tell you how seriously we took it. Examining criteria as diverse as ass-kicking ability, scoring tail, and homoerotic undertones, we crunch the numbers to give you the Best Movie Batman Ever (so far).
#5. ADAM WEST - Batman: The Movie (1966)
Coolness of Costume
In a word: dignified. That's what Adam West's Batman isn't. Tiny little nubbin bat-ears, a bat emblem that looks like it's slid halfway down his sallow, pectorally-absent chest, and a cape so wrinkled it makes one wonder if Batman had a long layover in Houston with his costume bunched up in his carry-on.
The worst offense, though, has to be the painted-on eyebrows. The point of Batman's costume is to strike fear in the hearts of criminals, not to make them wonder why he always looks surprised to see them, like he recognizes them from high school or something. "Tom... Tom Franklin? You son of a bitch, get over here, you!"
Also, we didn't bother to include a picture of Batman's bat-package (you're welcome), but let's just say '60s Batman's genital-hugging blue satin panties don't leave a lot to the imagination. Ignorant as to whether or not Adam West is circumcised? Anybody who watched Batman: The Movie can't, unfortunately, say the same.
Ass-Kicking Ability
BatWest fights like someone having a stroke. To be fair, Batman: The Movie's supposed to be campy. To once again be unfair, it looks like they didn't so much choreograph their fights as just run around flailing their arms like the set just caught on fire:
[whistling] Man, let that in. BatWest just got his ass handed to him there by a quacking Burgess Meredith with a pillow under his tuxedo. That's the point in your crime-fighting career where you just need to stop and frankly assess some things that might have gotten away from you. If BatWest had to fight a six-year-old girl on crutches, frankly, it could go either way.
Those Wonderful Toys
BatWest had the Batmobile, the Batcopter, the Batcycle, and the Batcave. But whatever-every Batman has those. What puts BatWest's bat-gadgets head and shoulders above any other movie Batman's gadgets was his magical utility belt, which housed roughly 60 billion bat-themed doohickeys that could be pulled out in any situation whatsoever. Need something soldered? Batblowtorch! Getting gassed by the Penguin? Anti-Penguin gas pills! Want a sandwich sliced? Batlaser! Motherfucker even had Bat-shark repellent on hand:
Smoothness with the Ladies
BatWest must have realized how not macho he looked running around in tight satin panties, and so overcompensated with his alter ego Bruce Wayne, swinging '60s bachelor. The sly grin, slicked-back hair, and ascot (right) combine to make him look like the guest star on an all-sexual predator episode of The Love Boat. Come. And. Get it, ladies.
Plus, if the tell-all autobiographies written by the cast are to be believed, Adam West spent the majority of the TV series and motion picture getting drunk, doing drugs, and attempting to nail any co-star with a pulse and a vagina. Whether or not this was a good thing or a bad thing depends, we suppose, on your stance on this sort of behavior and whose autobiography you're reading.
Robin "helps out" (i.e., gets kidnapped every 10 minutes), and Commissioner Gordon and Irish stereotype Chief "Bless Me Shamrocks" O'Hara could be counted on to be useless enough to need Batman's assistance on pretty much every single crime committed in Gotham City. Take a breath mint from the Commissioner's desk without asking, and he'd be leaping across his office to the Batphone to get some help cracking the case.
BatWest got around that whole "living (and fighting crime in his underpants) with a minor" thing by having Aunt Harriet move in with them, presumably to keep an eye out for any shenanigans of the homosexual variety. Having said that, they managed to hide secret identities and a vast underground cave fortress with a helicopter pad from her, meaning she was either pretty liberal about the whole thing or had the observational skills of a particularily stupid earthworm.


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by Melissa Brunner
If you think the title of this blog is referring to how a burger tastes, sorry! I don't want to get into a debate over which burger tastes best - although I would be happy to take your tips.... I love a good cheeseburger! No, instead, I will share the highly disheartening, yet somewhat enlightening list that turned up on Yahoo! Health today. It runs down the best and worst restaurant burgers....and that means in terms of health, not taste!
First the bad - are you in love with the Chili's Southern Smokehouse Bacon Burger? Sorry to inform you that it earned the title "Burger So Bad It Should Be Illegal." The tastebud tempting blend of maple bacon, smoked cheddar, mayonnaise, crispy onion strings, and ancho-chile barbecue sauce, served with fries, has 2,290 calories and more fat and sodium than you should consume in two days: 139 grams of fat (211% of the proper daily intake), 46 grams of saturated fat (230%), and a bloodcurdling 6,500 milligrams of sodium (271%).
Under the heading "Worst Burger Hybrid" is Applebee's quesedilla burger - replacing the bun with a tortilla doesn't make it healthy, evidentally! And how about a Krispy Kreme Burger? Yes, it's what it sounds like - the Machine Shed restaurant put an all-beef patty between a sliced doughnut to serve at the 2010 Wisconsin State Fair!
On the bright side, the article says Hardee's turkey burgers can pass muster, just don't cover it with bacon, cheese and mayo. If mushrooms are your thing, they pick Dairy Queen's Mushroom Swiss Burger. And for plain taste, they pick Wendy's Jr. Hamburger, with 230 calories, 8 grams of fat (3 grams saturated), and 470 milligrams of sodium. Sorry, "plain" means no cheese allowed!
I'm not sure the list will have me turning down a good cheeseburger anytime soon - but it might make me think about adding an extra run or two! Check out the list for yourself at this link: http://health.yahoo.net/articles/nutrition/photos/best-and-worst-burgers#0


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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it plans to raise the water level in Lake Cumberland by about 20 feet this summer as a massive repair project on Wolf Creek Dam progresses ahead of schedule.
The corps says work to install a barrier wall is on track to be completed by early this spring, ahead of the prior completion date of December. The barrier wall is the most crucial part of the nearly $600 million repair project.
With the work ahead of schedule, the corps plans to raise the water level in the southern Kentucky lake to an elevation of 700 to 705 feet. That's still below the usual peak lake level of 723 feet in summer.
But marina operators will be pleased with the higher lake level.