Man robs restaurant, calls back to complain about small haul

Crime does not pay. At least it not pay enough for one Atlanta-area robber, who held up a Wendy's and then phoned the restaurant to gripe about how little money he got away with.

From the story at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

A man who robbed a Wendy's at gunpoint Saturday night apparently was so upset with his haul that he twice called the restaurant to complain, Atlanta police said.

"Next time there better be more than $586," he said during one call. He made "a similar threat" in the second call, police said.

About 11:15 p.m., a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun walked up to the drive-through window at the Wendy's at 1940 Piedmont Road, police said. He told an employee to put the cash drawer on the counter.

After grabbing the drawer and running away, the robber discarded the drawer in the bushes at the nearby InTown Suites. Police dusted the drawer for fingerprints. However, the robber was seen wearing yellow gloves at Wendy's.

I've worked in fast food before, and nearly six hundred bucks is quite a lot for one register drawer. How much more was this guy expecting?

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CALVIN AND HOBBES did INCEPTION first!

Props to GeekTyrant for noting that years before Christopher Nolan's cinematic foray into dream country with Inception, that Bill Waterson was already "kick"-ing around the idea in Calvin and Hobbes :-)

Y'know, this would explain some things about Calvin, when you think about it...

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Fred Reed's take on WikiLeaks

The inimitable Fred Reed - who I consider to be the Internet's greatest curmudgeon - has weighed in on the WikiLeaks issue. And as is the case more often than not, he's saying the harsh truth that too many reporters, pundits and professional policy makers would rather the rest of us not think too much about (for our "own good", 'course).

Here's some of Fred's musings on the matter...

Two ways exist of looking at Wikileaks, the site that publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys.

Implicit in the Foxian view is a vague idea that the leaks give away important—well, stuff. You know, maybe frequencies of something or other, or locations of ambushes or, well, things. Important things. The Taliban will use this information to kill American soldiers. The notion is vague, as are those who hold it, but emotionally potent.

The other view, held usually by people who have some experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. Wikileaks doesn’t endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by wars.

Which is obvious if you look at what the military (the president, remember, is commander-in-chief) actually does. Remember the military’s frantic efforts to suppress the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, photos of prisoners lying in pools of blood while grinning girl soldiers play with them? These had zero tactical importance. They did however threaten to arouse the Pentagon’s worst enemy.

The American public.

Plenty more at the above link. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a Fred Reed essay, I've been told that it's quite like the literary equivalent to drinking several shots of Jack Daniels. Not that I personally know what that is like, mind ya...

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Severe geological activity about to happen?

I may get called a "kook" from some quarters for writing about this. All I can really say in my own defense is that it's something I'm sincerely curious about and I was told a long time ago that the only wrong question to ask is one that isn't asked at all...

Slashdot is spreading the news this afternoon about a massive ejection of high-energy particles from the the sun. It's headed toward Earth and should reach us sometime tomorrow. Among other things it means that we should be enjoying some lovely aurora, if you're fortunate to live at a high-enough latitude.

Awright well, here's the thing: I've noticed in the past several years that most every time we get hit by a solar flare, that there's usually a massive earthquake that happens not very long afterward.

Considering that the inside of the Earth is a molten piezoelectric dynamo that generates this planet's magnetic field and that the plates of the planet's crust are floating on top of it, it doesn't seem that coincidental a correlation. I mean, if every now and then the sun ejects some highly electromagnetic particles toward us, seems only fitting that there'd be some agitation of the works beneath us.

So... will an earthquake be occurring in the near future? More than one, perhaps?

I decided awhile back that the next time there was a report of this kind of solar weather that I'd make a note of it on this blog, just to see if anything happens. And whether or not it does well, guess this'll be my own lil' contribution to the body of observable data on geological activity :-)

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Greetings to all of y'all at the 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree!

Tonight I'm sitting in Reidsville... but my heart is at Fort A.P. Hill.

Here's bidding a hearty "hello" to all 45,000 or so of my friends who are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in style this week :-)

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Question for anyone who's playing STARCRAFT II

Is this game really that good? I'm thinking of getting it.

And should I play the original StarCraft first? Believe it or not, for all of the original's legendary renown, I've yet to play it.

(I'm way behind on my video games. I still need to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum sometime. Not to mention Halo 3: ODST.)

Anyway, StarCraft II looks incredibly promising. Just wondering if it's worth dropping sixty bucks for it, or if I should wait :-)

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Anne Rice: Clinging to Christ but leaving Christianity

Is it possible to follow Christ but not to claim to be a Christian?

Some of us have pondered and discussed that question at great length. If you're one of my Facebook friends, you've probably noticed that I describe myself to be an "Irreligious follower of Christ" in my religious affiliation. And that's just what it means: my identity is found in Christ. He and He alone establishes and defines my spiritual nature.

Do I enjoy worshiping our Lord with other followers of Christ? Absolutely. And I enjoy that regardless of what kind of "denomination" they might happen to be. Christ is magnificently bigger than our feeble and flawed perceptions. Where we invariably fail, He does succeed.

That is how I can fellowship with many different manner of those who follow Him, be they Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian, or non-denominational, or whatever. Does that mean I agree with or understand everything that other Christians hold to? No, it does not. But those things don't really matter anyway. We don't have to agree with each other 100% on issues that in the end have nothing to do with our faith in Christ. When He is truly our focus, He will overcome our foibles and errors. As much as I have faith in Him, I have faith in that as well.

That said, I can understand where author Anne Rice is coming from. Unfortunately, the message she is conveying is going to get lost in the rush to proclaim that she is "abandoning Christianity".

You might have heard already that Rice has announced on her Facebook page that she is giving up being a Christian. And as this sort of thing is apt to do, it has generated a whole heap of interest and controversy.

Here's Rice's post that started it all...

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

That was on Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon, Rice made a follow-up comment on her Facebook page...

"1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (1 Corinthians. St. Paul).

Between that one and her initial post, Rice made a few other posts. And in them she expressed what can only be deemed dire frustration with the expectation that as a Christian, she and anyone else with that label must be "anti-gay... anti-feminist... anti-Democrat... anti-science", etc.

Is she right? Let's ask ourselves, and let's be honest in answering this: Could it be that we as Christians define ourselves more by what we are NOT than by Christ who we claim to have?

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know about a certain cult in my area. This is a group of self-professed "Christians" who claim to be "the church that you read about in the Bible". And these people do nothing else but apparently spend every waking moment hurting others, harassing others, slandering others... all in the name of God. These "Christians" have nearly 10 hours of live television a week. What do they do with that airtime? Preach about how everyone else (especially Baptists, who according to them are without exception all damned to Hell) is wrong. These "Christians" are so overwhelmed with their hatred that they can't see that they don't have Christ at all. To them it is about "this is who we aren't", and not "this is Christ within us who has overcome us".

That is what Christianity does become, when it ceases to be about Christ. It will turn into a fixation on our own meager understanding: something that scripture warns us not to lean on or place our faith in. For without God, man inevitably places his trust in his own fallen nature.

And then, all too often, we actually excuse that away... in the name of God. In the name of Christ who came to love us and redeem us.

Reading Anne Rice's words of the past few days, I cannot BUT hear her frustration. And not with Christ, but with what is being done by some who proclaim Christ's name.

I don't see Anne Rice giving up Christ at all. And anyone who thinks otherwise should read the post that she made later yesterday afternoon...

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

Very beautifully put. And if I dare say so, Miss Rice has better articulated what it means to follow Christ than most anyone else that I have seen of late.

Read her words again: she has been led to be "an optimistic believer in... a loving God", from previously being "a pessimistic atheist".

Hey, I've been there too. Lots of us have. It's not something we're particularly proud of. But then, God never intended any of us to be whatever we might have once been. It's by His grace that we can grow from that.

So is Anne Rice abandoning Christianity? Apparently so... but I can't blame her. And that's no reason to condemn her either (as many will no doubt rush to do). Rice is asserting that her faith is in Christ, and that her faith is not in Christianity.

Anne Rice has perhaps grown more in ten years as a follower of Christ, than very many who spend their entire lifetimes boasting His name. We should consider what she is saying.

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